You could see this one coming: “Helen Thomas announced Monday that she is retiring, effective immediately. Her decision came after her controversial comments about Israel and the Palestinians were captured on videotape and widely disseminated on the Internet.”
Your Wonkette editor worked with Helen for a while at UPI and even edited her “Backstairs at the White House” column in 1999-2000, and enjoyed her company when she’d stop by the newsroom to tell stories about JFK Jr. or whatever, and if Helen wants to spend her last years barking about what sonsofbitches Israel’s politicians are, that’s cool. We do hope she figures out there’s a difference between right-wing Israeli hacks and, uh, the Jewish people of Earth. [McClatchy/Hearst]
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Wasn’t she a WH scribe since the days of Roosevelt? I wonder if he really said ‘Bully’ all the time?
The worst part? Ari Fleisher gets to feel smug. But boy howdy! She sure stepped in it!
Give her a job Ken.
Once the filter goes, retirement is generally advisable.
Hearst immediately announced that Jacob Maury Goldstein will be succeeding Thomas.
Huh. Well, that’s that, then. Kinda not how I expected her to go out (like an Imus or whatnot) but I guess the press room would be pretty uncomfortable after that.
The Washington Times has also announced that they are hiring Thomas as their new Publisher, Executive Editor, Managing Editor, Editorial Page Director, President, Chairman, and Chief Executive Officer.
Her hand in the photo reminds me what “gnarly” used to mean in the days before Pauly Shore.
The picture of Glen Beck on the left is smiling and making googly eyes at the picture of Helen Thomas. What’s up with that?
So much for that whole “speaking truth to power” thingy.
Or at least, “speaking truth to AIPAC.”
(I’m waiting for the ads: “Vacation in Israel (because the Schwartes took over South Africa!)”
at last, we can put the whole israel-palestine problem behind us.
Old reporters never die. They just get retracted.
[re=593293]dex[/re]: Read the alt-text!
Poor old bitch. A 927 year career – gone – because she got on the wrong side of AIPAC due to foot in mouth disease. I never realized Ari Fleisher had such clout.
Is she retiring to Poland or Germany?
Your Wonkette editor worked with Helen for a while at UPI . . .
Ken? You are a Moonie?
Well, at least we all know what to expect next: A scantily-clad feature in Maxim and paparazzi upskirts! Then, in a few years, she can put on an ill-fitting fat suit and dance around at the MTV movie awards.
Let me guess: to spend more time with her family?
Ok now is it Mazeltov? Can somebody please help this goy out?
[re=593296]Ken Layne[/re]: [shakes fist @ the sky] laaayne!
Well, this isn’t going encourage those Protocols of the Order of Zion conspiracy types to go off the deep end or anything.
It was either retire or wear an upside-down Star of David in the pressroom, to show she was anti-Semite.
Oy veh!
[re=593314]the problem child[/re]: “Elders”
But there is probably one of those, too.
This will free her up to play “Mrs. Twit” in the live-action film adaptation of the beloved Roald Dahl book.
I think it’s fantastic that she’s going out with a ‘scandal’, because why the hell not? Too bad it’s not a sex scandal, tho.
JEWS DID HELEN THOMAS
http://www.google.com/images?q=mrs+twit
The press corps will likely miss her most. She always had some hard candy in her purse for those kids.
Shit.
Smartest thing she could have possibly done to balance out the incredible stupidity of her comments. As a liberal I am generally appalled by the Israeli government’s behavior, but as a Jew that video of Helen–made on a celebration of Jewish Heritage Day, no less–made me want to punch her in her wrinkled craw. As someone pointed out elsewhere today, she was 25 when Dachau was liberated so she should know better.
She should have stayed until Ari Fleischer shut up, then quit.
I think there is probably a limit at which flakkery becomes intolerable and an age at which discernment fails, and it’s awful that the two hit her and allowed that unreconstituted asshole to have a victory.
Fleischer needs to experience all the things he said were not torture so that he can have an informed opinion, or else he should disappear from the work he is doing.
[re=593303]BklynIlluminati[/re]: Nyet, it’s not time for Mazel Tov. Mazel Tov is a very joyous thing, like at a wedding. It’s more like time for “oy vez mear,” which is kinda like a very long sigh, roughly translated in this case as boy, did she step in shit this time. Only an asshole, aka Ari Fleischer, would have naches (joy) from this debacle. Like Ken wrote in his earlier post about this. A normal person would just see this as a sad ending to an otherwise illustrious career.
Next job’s gonna be chairperson of AIPAC…or at the very least, B’nai Brith. It’s a form of community service to atone, you know.
[re=593343]Katydid[/re]: Lord, could I have written “like” any more times in that comment?
Here’s something innarresting: Danny Thomas is not the only Lebanese person named “Thomas.” Helen’s parents were Lebanese immigrants. This may help to explain her attitude about Israel. Innit?
I hope this gives the hint to David Broder. Sooner or later he’ll lament the lack of bipartisonship between the Israelis and Palestinians.
Helen may be gone but the melange of Ben Gay, onions and butterscotch candies will linger in the air forever.
[re=593343]Katydid[/re]: [re=593343]Katydid[/re]: Well can we all go to Katz’s and get out nosh on then? I mean all this talk about the Jews just makes me crave pastrami I promise to eat in a sad way…..
Bummer — she’s needed to retire for a while, but this isn’t the way for someone with such a long and illustrious career to go out. It’s not like Lester Kinsolving ever got kicked out of the WH press room for his constant stream of idiocy.
Anyway, it’s time, Miz Thomas — it’s either that or get eaten alive. I just hope there are enough testicles in the modern press to hold our leaders’ feet to the fire like you did when it seemed as though you were the only one.
Poor Helen. She stepped smack dab in between Judaism and Zionism. Just where them thar Palestinians are, too.
This is what happens when you stay too long at the party. She was something, though.
I guess the Jews really do control the media.
[re=593357]Aurelio[/re]: Her sexuality has nothing to do with this. Groaner, I know, low-hanging fruit, low-hanging fruit.
[re=593370]BklynIlluminati[/re]: You’re catching on! I was born in Brooklyn, and I’m a Joo so I know from the Illuminati, so we might could make beautiful music together…
[re=593357]Aurelio[/re]: Eh, Lebanon is complicated. A very context-y place in itself, that has never been all “Hey we’re all Muslims here and we don’t like the Jews” and was in pretty good shape until the wrong people there got too much power and provoked the neighbors to the south.
Not meaning to give the Israelis a break on the ensuing shitstorm of events, but I don’t think Helen’s misstatement was based on tribal loyalty.
Make sure the Mossad hears this so they can tell their agents they can call off car bombing Ms. Thomas’s caddy.
It’s a sad thing that I’ve seen happen with other old people, including my late grandmother. A lot were brought up as racists back in the times when it was socially acceptable to say publicly racist things, but learned as they matured that it was not acceptable, only to start acting racist again as dementia their self-control.
[re=593298]Lionel Hutz Esq.[/re]: The Moonies didn’t buy the UPI until 2000; that was when Thomas among other then-respectable journalists quit.
Helen Thomas is America’s Anti-Semitic Grandma. Just like our real grandma.
I always sensed the difference in WH Press Secretaries. Guys like Joe Lockhart, Robert Gibbs and even Scott McClellan seemed to enjoy sparring with Helen. You felt that they treated it as if they were a batter being served up a nice, fast pitch. Then you had your Fleishers, Snows, and Perrinos. It always seemed to me that they would rather be sifting through a bucket of shit for a lost diamond, than having to answer Helen’s questions.
[re=593386]Lascauxcaveman[/re]:
Lebanon…has never been all “Hey we’re all Muslims here and we don’t like the Jews”…
Good point. Maybe Helen’s Lebanese relatives are Christian Phalangists. They don’t hate Jews.
[re=593399]SystemError[/re]: Your grandmas aren’t the only ones, you know. There is great conflict within the Jewish community on these issues and they aren’t calling each other anti-semitic. Go to http://www.truetorahjews.org and see for yourself.
Now, she’ll be able to say what she really thinks.
Glenn Beck lays it on about Helen Thomas today & manages to turn up the crazee:
GLENN: Hello. Just go back there. Oh. Seriously? With the world melting down again and anti Semitism on the rise? Oh, that’s going to be good. No, seriously. Just have millions of people move back into Germany, Poland, and Russia. You know, Helen, for a while there I just thought you were a crazy, wild eyed nutjob. But now I see how dangerous you really are. That is the — that’s the move of a peacemaker. Let’s take millions of people and move them with anti Semitism on the rise, back into Poland, Germany, and Russia.
PAT: Well, and obviously not Israel. She wants Israel to be gone. She obviously doesn’t want a two state solution. She wants a one state solution and that’s Palestine. There was no — there’s never been a Palestinian homeland. There’s never been. They were offered one.
GLENN: First of all —
PAT: They just didn’t take it.
GLENN: First of all, you know who occupied this territory before the Jews did? The English. This was English territory.
PAT: They are the ones that named it.
GLENN: And you know, this is the same kind of nonsense that is happening now in the United States. Get out — California, you’re in occupied territories. California. Texas, you’re occupying Mexican territory.
PAT: Get out and go back to Europe.
GLENN: Let me ask you this. Didn’t California, I mean, didn’t that belong to Spain before Mexico?
PAT: For about 300 years. Mexico had it for about 15.
GLENN: Mexico, get the hell out of Spain; you are occupying Spain’s land. This doesn’t make any sense! When are we going to start making sense?
[re=593474]chascates[/re]: I see where he is going with this and I like it. So, who had the the land formerly known as Mexico before Spain? Yes, Beck, you’re on to something here. Who had it first? Who roamed the land that we now call America for thousands of years before Spain and those other European guys did? This man is a genius! Genius!
Mike Huckabbee from yesterday:
“Helen, they are home. Read Genesis 15, Exodus 23, Numbers 34 — that’s why they are where they are.”
Is there really a difference, Wonkette? Personally speaking, I can’t tell Jews from non-Jews, and I have an equally hard time telling the difference between Zionists and non-Zionists, unless they stand up and speak out.
Helen Thomas is only 89? Has someone been shaving off a few birthdays from their resume, eh?
Ed Koch on Jewish ownership of the land:
“Jews have lived in the area known in modern times as the British Mandate of Palestine, for thousands of years and up to the present time.
Indeed, Israelite civilization goes back to the patriarchs Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, as well as to King David and King Solomon. We Jews spring from the loins of those patriarchs.
The State of Israel sits where the Jewish kingdoms of Judea and Israel reigned thousands of years ago.”
So those Palestinians are actually just like our brown illegalz in Arizona? No wonder they’re denied fresh fruit, potato chips, and black pepper!
So Helen, the Jews should move back to the three places where they were most persecuted? Now that you have the time, could you explain how that would work out for them? As for those fun-loving, perky Israelis, with whom I served at Ft. Hood — being surrounded by folks pledged to killing you and denying your right to exist has a tendency to increase your irritability.
Sometimes very old reporters are shining examples; other times, they are just very old, and sometimes they can be one, then the other.
Helen Thomas died YEARS ago. That was actually Keith Richards at White House press conferences. Now he’ll be back touring with the Stones!
Needs moar space orcs!
Helen Thomas may retire, but Second Life Helen Thomas shall not abate the field until it runs green with the ichors of every orc who darest bring their hideous countenances into light of day!
[re=593550]lawrenceofthedesert[/re]: That’s what black people in Mississippi and Alabama say too.
[re=593357]Aurelio[/re]: [re=593415]Aurelio[/re]: Helen Thomas is Greek Ortho
And yet Monica Crowley still has a job.
[re=593333]imissopus[/re]: The facts that she’s so old means that she has a pre-AIPAC perspective on the whole ‘Palestine’ issue. This is not a bad thing.
Where the heck is Kayne when someone really, really needs to be interupted?????
Poor Helen, ahead of your time again.
When I finish my time machine I am going back in time and rewriting the bible/torah/other magic sky god books so they say the promised land is in Hawaii. Then I’ll jet back to the current year and enjoy the wonderful peaceful state of Earth and marvel at how much its people have been able to accomplish now that the Jews are enjoying Hawaii and the Palestinians are enjoying Palestine.
[re=593595]Bearbloke[/re]: Not getting your point. What does AIPAC have to do with this? I’m making a point about the concentration camps. What happened in those places drove the creation of Israel in the first place, and Helen Thomas damn well knows it. As Master Layne said, she will hopefully one day learn the difference between the lunatics currently in charge of the Israeli government and the rest of the world’s Jews.
[re=593574]snideinplainsight[/re]: “Needs moar space orcs!”
Reavers?
Didn’t she also refer to NYC as “HeimeTown”?
Too late to take up Golf?
Hard to get my snark erect. This makes me sad.
[re=593625]Beetletheknee[/re]: Reavers- I love Firefly and Serenity- and remember- we created the reavers!
[re=593614]imissopus[/re]: 1) Those are not “lunatics” in charge of the Israeli government. Those are dedicated, pragmatic, secular and popularly-elected “realpolitik” sons-of-bitches operators, and they have been at it (secular Zionism) since at least 1850, well before the “concentration camps.” Also, while all Jews may be Zionists, not all Zionists are religious Jews. Orthodox Jewry actually rejects the notion that there can or should be a national Jewish state.
2) Having lived for some two-thirds of a century, I have found that there is some bigotry in all of us, myself included. It’s just human nature. Helen is no exception to my opinion. That said, Helen is an old lady now, and we all know that the oldz, feeling that they having nothing to lose, sometimes “speak their minds.” I have no doubt that the recent events in regard to the Turkish “peace convoy” caused her to blow her stack, and she angrily lashed out. The oldz do that, you know, because they are human, just like us the rest of us almost-oldz.
3) Is her anger justifiable? I say, absolutely. Were her remarks intemperate and ill-considered? Again, absolutely. She could have taken a deep breath and said something cutting but erudite, citing Israel’s miserable anti-Palestinian policy and history of sabotaging the peace negotiations, but she didn’t, because she was spitting mad, and what bigotry she may have was conflated with her knowledge of Israeli misdeeds past and present. Also, the way I read it, she wasn’t talking about the “rest of the world’s Jews,” she was talking about the present-day leadership of Israel, and the Likuds in particular.
4) Read some history of the so-called “peace process” and you will find that there has never been any intention whatsoever to allow Palestinians to remain in or around Eratz Israel except in rigidly controlled bantustans. This makes some people very very angry. Noam Chomsky has written extensively on this subject, as have many other authors, including John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt, who also got their heads handed to them on a plate by … and here’s your relevance … AIPAC.
For the record, Noam Chomsky is banned from lecturing in Israel. He can “return home,” but he just can’t talk to other Jews while he’s there.
[re=593742]Beanball[/re]: Um, I’m Jewish and fairly familiar with Zionism and its history, thanks. I’m also of the opinion that anyone who has a passing familiarity with what went on in the camps and has seen the pictures could at least understand the desire of Jews to have a land where they could live in relative peace and safety. The list of ways in which they have botched it could fill volumes. Doesn’t mean it is no longer a worthy goal, which is what Helen seemed to imply.
I’m also aware that Helen Thomas is old and the oldz will occasionally spout off, that Israel’s history of sincere peace negotiations is (to put it mildly) less than illustrious, that everyone has a little bigotry in them (I’m a Southern Jew, believe me, it was abundantly clear at a young age), that Helen wasn’t talking about the world’s Jews (though I read it as Israelis generally, not just the current leadership.) We’re in agreement, I think, that AIPAC is made up of reactionary dickwads who have smeared some good people and stifled dissent on this issue, and that that is wrong, and that anger over the flotilla raid is perfectly justifiable.
All of this awareness and context does not make it any less painful to hear Helen croak out that bullshit. I may be about as lapsed a Jew as you’ll meet but I do have some strong feelings of tribalism even when I’m disappointed or upset by the tribe’s behavior. But I’ve only lived a little over a third of a century so perhaps I can still outgrow it.
Thanks for the lecture, though. It in now way came off as condescending.
[re=593474]chascates[/re]: Glenn was funnier when he was on the drugs and had a mullet.
The go back to Germany was a stupid thing to say, but if her remarks had been planned and IN CONTEXT and she’d said that the religious fanatics on the West Bank should go back to Brooklyn, I’d be with her. She apologized and given the crap we put up with all the time with no apologies from Beck, Palin, Limbaugh, etc, it’s a shame this becomes part of the legacy. The nice thing about retirement, however, is that afterwards you get to say whatever the fuck you want. I look forward to the uncensored tweets of Helen. I’ll subscribe to your feed, baby.
Next thing you know, Helen Thomas is going to compare Israel to South Africa during the “Bad Old Days.” There is, of course, no factual or historical basis for any such claim.
After all, the “natives” in South Africa were darker. And the guys who were buying Israeli arms — and bargaining for, and getting, Israeli nuclear weapons technology — were whiter.
I hope that clears it up for you.
(Titus had the Right Idea back in 70 A.C.E. Level Jerusalem and enslave all the survivors. What jackass allowed anyone to rebuild the “Holy City”?)
[re=593802]marioninnyc[/re]: Being a right-wing nutjob means never having to say you’re sorry.
[re=593742]Beanball[/re]: Orthodox Jews do not reject the notion that there can or should be a Jewish state. A very few ultra orthodox Jews such as Neturai Karta do reject the state- the vast majority of Orthodox Jews do believe in the State of Israel. Don’t go blathering about something about which you know nothing. If you get all your information from the three people you mention(and even they know you are wrong)- you really know nothing- too bad that having lived as long as you say you have(if even that is true), you have learned so little.
Pandy: I lived amongst many blacks in the south (since they treated me far more humanely than their white neighbors) and g-d bless them I just don’t understand why any black person would voluntarily leave say Brooklyn for moose piss, mississippi. Why?
[re=593825]finallyhappy[/re]: “Orthodox Jews do not reject the notion that there can or should be a Jewish state. A very few ultra orthodox Jews such as Neturai Karta do reject the state- the vast majority of Orthodox Jews do believe in the State of Israel.”
You’re right: I should have said Haredi ultra-Orthodox rather than conflating them with with your more mainstream Orthodox. Pardon me.
But as for “getting all [my] information from the three people [I] mentioned,” you are mistaken in your criticism. The rest of your comment is a sad case of your jumping to an unfounded conclusion. Also & too.
The only reason the situation in Palestine is intractable is that the Jews (I mean of course the majority of the masses swarming onto stolen land) refused to get the fuck out in the 1960s. And, um, you guys? When Helen Thomas started being a reporter, they could have still left, someone else could still have offered them a home. The problem in the Middle East is no longer Zionism–as in America, there will be two legitimate claims on the land for as long as the current property regime lasts, and then there may even be three–but the problem in the Middle East was caused by Zionism. I am ashamed to live in a country where criticism of a belligerent, oppressive state is not only frowned upon but enough to end a career. Hint, you guys: the important lesson of the Holocaust isn’t about hating Jews, it’s about the horrors that occur when an arbitrarily vilified people is denied their history, property, land, and place in society.
Two words: Carousel. Also.
[re=593343]Katydid[/re]: “A normal person would just see this as a sad ending to an otherwise illustrious career.”
A normal person would see this and look back on everything she’s done until now. It completely taints a lifetime of work. Don’t tell me you think these are new ideas.
[re=593857]undeadgoat[/re]: “Hint, you guys: the important lesson of the Holocaust isn’t about hating Jews, it’s about the horrors that occur when an arbitrarily vilified people is denied their history, property, land, and place in society.”
The second half of your sentence is right, but the first part borders on antisemitism. The important lesson of the Holocaust isn’t about hating Jews? Really? Millions get gassed … and the lesson is “let’s just be nice to each other, mmkay?” No, the lesson of the Holocaust is about the Jews. It’s the culmination of 2000 years of persecution. If the Palestinians want to complain that they’re being treated the way the Jews were treated in Europe, they’re going to have to suffer through another 1,950 years of this.
You glibly say that the Jews could’ve voluntarily exterminated themselves from Israel in the 1960s because how long would they have been there – 12 years, max? Amirite? Well, you’re wrong. You don’t know about the Mandate period, you don’t know about Theodore Herzl and aliyah which started in the last quarter of the 19th century … in fact you don’t know shit about shit, do you? Yes, go look it up on Wikipedia before you try to piece together another pathetic argument.
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