Salon.com > Helen Thomas http://www.salon.com Sun, 19 May 2013 01:00:00 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.2.1 Hypocritical Huckabee will boycott NPR http://www.salon.com/2010/10/21/huckabee_hypocrisy/ http://www.salon.com/2010/10/21/huckabee_hypocrisy/#comments Thu, 21 Oct 2010 18:15:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/news/politics//war_room/2010/10/21/huckabee_hypocrisy In response to NPR firing Juan Williams for expressing prejudice toward Muslims, Mike Huckabee today slammed NPR for discrediting "itself as a forum for free speech" and solidifying "itself itself as the purveyor of politically correct pabulum." 

In a statement published on his PAC's website, Huckabee called for the de-funding of NPR and said he will "no longer accept interview requests" from the network:

NPR has discredited itself as a forum for free speech and a protection of the First Amendment rights of all and has solidified itself as the purveyor of politically correct pabulum and protector of views that lean left.

While I have often enjoyed appearing on NPR programs and have been treated fairly and objectively, I will no longer accept interview requests from NPR as long as they are going to practice a form of censorship, and since NPR is funded with public funds, it IS a form of censorship. It is time for the taxpayers to start making cuts to federal spending, and I encourage the new Congress to start with NPR.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2010/10/21/huckabee_hypocrisy/feed/ 69 Should Fox fire Glenn Beck? Or should he resign? http://www.salon.com/2010/07/16/beck_17/ http://www.salon.com/2010/07/16/beck_17/#comments Fri, 16 Jul 2010 22:01:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/joe_conason//2010/07/16/beck Has Glenn Beck been touting anti-Semitic propaganda again? If so, should he suffer the same fate as Helen Thomas, the legendary Hearst columnist forced to resign last month after an idiotic tirade urging Israelis to "go home" to Poland and Germany?

Those unpleasant questions were provoked by Beck's latest bizarre outburst concerning religion when, in the throes of yet another lecture July 13 on why Christians should abhor social justice, he alluded to his belief that "the Jews" had killed Jesus Christ.

Discussing liberation theology and its portrayal of Jesus,  Beck said: "If he was a victim and this theology was true, then Jesus would have come back from the dead and made the Jews pay for what they did."

Beck's recitation of the old Christ-killer canard -- a foundation of anti-Semitic ideology from the Passion Plays of the Middle Ages through the rise of Nazism to Mel Gibson's contemporary spewing -- may or may not represent personal prejudice. As the Fox News star might say, some of his best friends (including his publicist Matthew Hiltzik) happen to be Jewish.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2010/07/16/beck_17/feed/ 243 Cartoon Saturday: Helen Thomas http://www.salon.com/2010/06/12/helen_thomas_opinionated_open2010/ http://www.salon.com/2010/06/12/helen_thomas_opinionated_open2010/#comments Sat, 12 Jun 2010 11:01:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/ent/entertainment/comics/cartoon_saturday/2010/06/12/helen_thomas_opinionated_open2010

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2010/06/12/helen_thomas_opinionated_open2010/feed/ 21 South Carolina’s always there for Jon Stewart http://www.salon.com/2010/06/08/daily_show_south_carolina/ http://www.salon.com/2010/06/08/daily_show_south_carolina/#comments Tue, 08 Jun 2010 13:09:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/news/politics//war_room/2010/06/08/daily_show_south_carolina "Why don't you come up on my veranda and set a spell? Sounds like someone could use to hear some casual racism... South Carolina style."

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Thank You, South Carolina - The Race to Replace Disgrace
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Tea Party

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2010/06/08/daily_show_south_carolina/feed/ 4 Helen Thomas: Our heroes are human http://www.salon.com/2010/06/07/helen_thomas/ http://www.salon.com/2010/06/07/helen_thomas/#comments Mon, 07 Jun 2010 21:05:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/life/broadsheet//2010/06/07/helen_thomas Under any other circumstances, it wouldn't be a surprise to hear that Helen Thomas -- the titan of the White House press corps -- is retiring. For god's sake, the woman who has reported on the U.S. presidents for five decades is turning 90 this summer. Who would begrudge the trailblazer for hanging up her press card so that she can sleep in once in a while?

But the news that Thomas is retiring from Hearst Newspapers comes in the wake of controversy shrouding her comments about Israel and Palestine. The news, then, is not so simple.

If you've been under a rock this past week, here's what happened: Thomas was videotaped saying that Jewish people "should get the hell out of Palestine" and go back to Germany or Poland. As the public recoiled from her comments, Thomas issued an apology and said that her remarks "do not reflect my heart-felt belief that peace will come to the Middle East only when all parties recognize the need for mutual respect and tolerance." Nonetheless, she was dropped by a national speaker's bureau and canceled a high school commencement address she was expected to give. And now comes news of her retirement after 67 years in the journalism business.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2010/06/07/helen_thomas/feed/ 185 Right wing wins Helen Thomas’ scalp http://www.salon.com/2010/06/07/helen_thomas_retires_2/ http://www.salon.com/2010/06/07/helen_thomas_retires_2/#comments Mon, 07 Jun 2010 17:30:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/news/politics//war_room/2010/06/07/helen_thomas_retires Hearst columnist Helen Thomas is retiring after she gave a controversial response to a question about Israel to RabbiLIVE.com. Thomas, 89, has worked from the White House since she covered the Kennedy administration for UPI.

After she moved from UPI in 2000 (following the wire's purchase by the Unification Church) to Hearst, Thomas became known for her much more opinionated questioning of White House press secretaries. As she was regularly abusing the Bush administration's flacks (from her longtime position in the very first row), she earned the ire of conservatives and right-wing bloggers (most of whom masked their hatred in faux-sadness that a trailblazing legend had become a liberal crank).

RabbiLIVE got the damning video on the 27th, when they asked Thomas for comments "on Israel."

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2010/06/07/helen_thomas_retires_2/feed/ 145 Helen Thomas retires after Israel remark flap http://www.salon.com/2010/06/07/helen_thomas_retires/ http://www.salon.com/2010/06/07/helen_thomas_retires/#comments Mon, 07 Jun 2010 16:50:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/news/2010/06/07/helen_thomas_retires Longtime Washington journalist Helen Thomas abruptly retired Monday, according to her employer, Hearst News Service.

The 89-year-old Thomas, dean of the White House press corps, leaves amid a brewing controversy over remarks she made about Israel and Palestinians.

Thomas, known for her confrontational questioning, apologized for comments that were captured on video and have spread widely on the Internet. On the May 27 video, Thomas says Israelis should "get the hell out of Palestine," suggesting they go to Germany, Poland or the U.S.

The Hearst announcement came shortly after White House press secretary Robert Gibbs called her remarks "offensive and reprehensible."

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP's earlier story is below.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Controversial remarks about Israel by veteran White House reporter Helen Thomas drew sharp criticism from the Obama administration on Monday, as well as the cancellation of a high school graduation speech she was to deliver.

White House press secretary Robert Gibbs was asked at his daily briefing with reporters about President Barack Obama's reaction to Thomas' remarks. Gibbs called them "offensive and reprehensible."

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2010/06/07/helen_thomas_retires/feed/ 9 The right’s Helen Thomas hypocrisy http://www.salon.com/2010/06/07/thomas_ethnic_cleansing/ http://www.salon.com/2010/06/07/thomas_ethnic_cleansing/#comments Mon, 07 Jun 2010 12:08:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/news/politics//war_room/2010/06/07/thomas_ethnic_cleansing In much the same way that some of us on the left are fond of calling out racism among conservatives, right-wing commentators love little more than lobbing the accusation of anti-Semitism back our way. Normally, they aim way too wide, and wing a bunch of people who are plainly just reasonable critics of Israel. (As someone who's unmistakably Jewish in person, but lacks a particularly Jewish last name, I especially enjoy blogging about Israel and getting called a Jew-hater in the comments. On the Internet, nobody knows you're a Heeb.)

For once, though, conservatives are piling up on someone who really did cross some kind of line. Video recently emerged of veteran White House correspondent Helen Thomas saying, at the White House Jewish Heritage celebration last month, that Israel should "get the hell out of Palestine," and that Jews should "go home ... to Poland and Germany."

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2010/06/07/thomas_ethnic_cleansing/feed/ 226 Helen Thomas moves back http://www.salon.com/2007/02/21/thomas_moving_to_second_row/ http://www.salon.com/2007/02/21/thomas_moving_to_second_row/#comments Wed, 21 Feb 2007 16:46:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/life/broadsheet//2007/02/21/thomas_moving_to_second_row A pig in the sky? A snowball in hell? Helen Thomas in the second row? It could happen, according to Politico.com, which reports today that the musical chairs in the White House press room renovation will result in Thomas' move -- to make room for a cable channel. It's a sign, Politico says, of "Washington's changing pecking order, and of the new ways that Americans get their news." The venerable Thomas, a Broadsheet idol, was gracious about the expected change. "I've had a good run in the front seat," she said in a phone interview. A member of the White House Correspondents Association, which traditionally draws up the seating charts, noted that Thomas remains the only columnist with a designated chair in the briefing room; while Thomas' seat may have moved, the correspondent said, "Her special place in history is secure."

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2007/02/21/thomas_moving_to_second_row/feed/ 5 From Colbert’s video to the White House briefing room http://www.salon.com/2006/05/19/iraq_167/ http://www.salon.com/2006/05/19/iraq_167/#comments Fri, 19 May 2006 16:30:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/news/politics//war_room/2006/05/19/iraq From the "Life Imitates Art" Department, Helen Thomas reprised her role in Stephen Colbert's White House Correspondents' Association video skit today by asking Tony Snow why the United States invaded Iraq.

The exchange, from today's gaggle:

Thomas: The new Italian prime minister says that the president's invasion of Iraq was a grave error. As the new kid on the block, can you give me the latest rationale the U.S. has for invading Iraq?

Snow: There has only been one rationale, as you know, Helen, and this that Saddam Hussein had resisted -- what is the proper number? -- 17 United Nations resolutions, and had refused repeatedly to permit weapons inspectors to do their work, and consistent with that. And also we had cited other concerns in terms of democracy and human rights. That case has never changed. Also the case laid out and voted by the United States Senate --

Thomas: He finds that as a justification to invade a country where we had choke-hold sanctions, satellite surveillance --

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2006/05/19/iraq_167/feed/ 10 “Saddam chose to deny inspectors” http://www.salon.com/2006/03/31/bush_lies/ http://www.salon.com/2006/03/31/bush_lies/#comments Fri, 31 Mar 2006 12:03:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/joe_conason//2006/03/31/bush_lies Slowly but inexorably, as more and more information emerges, the conventional wisdom about the events leading to war in Iraq is shifting. The American public has joined the rest of the civilized world in questioning the arguments and motives of the war makers. Commentators who have habitually fashioned excuses for the White House seem to find that task increasingly burdensome and humiliating. The old lies no longer have much traction.

Yet even now, President Bush persists in blatantly falsifying the war's origins -- perhaps because, even now, he still gets away with it.

At his most recent press conference, that strange impulse to utter a ridiculous lie seemed to seize the president. It happened when he called on Hearst columnist Helen Thomas.

"I'd like to ask you, Mr. President, your decision to invade Iraq has caused the deaths of thousands of Americans and Iraqis, wounds of Americans and Iraqis for a lifetime," said the venerable correspondent in her confrontational style. "Every reason given, publicly at least, has turned out not to be true. My question is, why did you really want to go to war?"

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2006/03/31/bush_lies/feed/ 60 A Broadsheet correction http://www.salon.com/2006/02/09/helen_thomas_correction/ http://www.salon.com/2006/02/09/helen_thomas_correction/#comments Thu, 09 Feb 2006 15:22:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/life/broadsheet//2006/02/09/helen_thomas_correction Usually I would make a correction like this in the original item or note it in letters, but because nearly two days have passed since my error, I decided to write it up separately.

In this space on Tuesday, in an item about White House press corps reporter Helen Thomas' showdown with Bush press secretary Scott McClellan, I credited Jessica at Feministing with eloquently observing, "Helen Thomas Rocks My Fucking World." In fact, Jessica did not write the headline. Helen Thomas rocks Ann at Feministing's fucking world.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2006/02/09/helen_thomas_correction/feed/ 0 The Helen Thomas smackdown http://www.salon.com/2006/02/07/helen_thomas_2/ http://www.salon.com/2006/02/07/helen_thomas_2/#comments Tue, 07 Feb 2006 22:27:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/life/broadsheet//2006/02/07/helen_thomas Even after a dust-up last summer regarding how infrequently President Bush calls on the women who make up approximately a quarter of the White House press corps, there's one broad it's always been impossible to ignore: Helen Thomas.

During yesterday's press conference, the legendary Thomas, who's been covering the White House since 1961, decided to drive press secretary Scott McClellan absolutely batty by giving him a piece of her mind -- along with a civics and history lesson -- on the illegality of domestic wiretapping.

Crooks and Liars has a transcript and video of the exchange that is really worth checking out.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2006/02/07/helen_thomas_2/feed/ 10 The president’s accountability moment http://www.salon.com/2005/07/18/accountability_13/ http://www.salon.com/2005/07/18/accountability_13/#comments Mon, 18 Jul 2005 19:19:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/news/politics//war_room/2005/07/18/accountability George W. Bush was asked a question about the Valerie Plame case this morning, and rather than ignoring it -- as he has done before -- he actually said words in response. The words didn't answer the question, exactly, and sometimes they didn't even make much sense. ("The best place for the facts to be done," the president said, "is by somebody who's spending time investigating it.") But there was something remarkable buried in the president's remarks, and we're not talking here about his bar-raising, goalpost-moving flip-flop on whether he'd fire anyone involved in the leak.

No, what struck us as most remarkable -- most inexplicable -- is the admission of ignorance from a president who usually seems entirely sure of himself even when he's demonstrably wrong. When it comes to the Plame case, Bush said, "I don't know all the facts."

Assuming for a moment that the president is telling the truth, we've got a one-word follow-up question to ask.

Why?

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2005/07/18/accountability_13/feed/ 0 The Fix http://www.salon.com/2003/03/07/fix_3/ http://www.salon.com/2003/03/07/fix_3/#comments Fri, 07 Mar 2003 21:07:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/entertainment/feature/2003/03/07/fix James Gandolfini is threatening to not show up for Season 5 of "The Sopranos," which is supposed to start filming March 24. He's upset that HBO gave series creator David Chase a raise without telling ol' Tone. Gandolfini reportedly gets $400,000 for each episode of "The Sopranos" -- compared to, say, the $800,000 Ray Romano gets for each "Everybody Loves Raymond." But Ray doesn't get to go to the Bada-Bing! (Guardian)

This might send Tony back to Prozac, but speaking of money, we hear cutie pie Renée Zellweger made $10 million for "Chicago," Irish brawler Colin Farrell made $2.5 million for "Minority Report" and will make $8 million for "S.W.A.T." (due in August), and buff gal Sarah Michelle Gellar made $6 million for "Scooby-Doo." (People) Just try not to think about it, big guy.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2003/03/07/fix_3/feed/ 0 Out, out, damned rumor http://www.salon.com/2000/05/17/npwed/ http://www.salon.com/2000/05/17/npwed/#comments Wed, 17 May 2000 16:00:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/people/col/reit/2000/05/17/npwed You think the rumors don't hurt
Whitney Houston? They do. Deeply.
But it's not the drug rumors that sting.
Oh no. It's those other rumors
that cut her to the quick.

"The thing that hurt me the most was
that they tried to pin something on me
that I was not. My mother raised me to
never, ever be ashamed of what I
am," Houston tells Out magazine. "But
I'm not a lesbian, darling. I'm not."

And in case you missed that, allow her
to make herself perfectly clear. She is
"not lesbian, not gay, not all that B.S.
I don't want to hear that. It's
over."

What, you need to hear her say it again?

- - - - - - - - - - - -

What
would Lucy and Desi say?

"What I often do is think of what the
Little Ricky inside me thinks of what
the grown-up Ricky has become. I will
ask him: 'Are you happy with how things
have turned out? Are you proud?' And you
know what? Sometimes, Little Ricky isn't
proud."

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