The Press Rolled Over

85 year old long serving Washington reporter Helen Thomas appeared on Jon Stewart's Daily Show yesterday and chastised her colleagues. God bless. 

Stewart: What's changed? What's different about the relationship between the White House press corps now and what it was when you felt it was fine. 

Thomas: I think that during other periods the press has been awake to the- you know- of denying the right to know. Not denying the American people the right to know. I think that they rolled over and played dead because of 9/11, fear of being called un-American, unpatriotic, and so forth. And they didn't ask the challenging questions that they should have asked in the run up to the war. They retreated and they let the country down. 

Stewart: And, and when they... Have you- do you feel that's always been the case? I almost wonder, like, would you have been more patient for this if you haven't seen so much? If you didn't have the context around you would you have more patience for these guys? 

Thomas: I think... I don't think so. I think that I've always been a straight shooter. I've always believed that the shortest distance between two points is a straight line. And those are the questions that should be asked. And I could not imagine why my colleagues were not asking the obvious... 

Stewart: How many questions have you been able to ask the President directly? 

Thomas: About three. 

Stewart: It's so strange because it's almost- it was kind of like traditional that you would throw out the first ball at every press conference. 

Thomas: I don't deserve to have that anymore because I don't work for a wire service. When I worked for UPI I got the first or second question. A very great privilege. But I like to ask questions now at any point. 

Stewart: You just shout them out. Tony Snow. You're in a press conference I guess just this week. He said, "Helen, you're heckling me." And he said, "It's rude, I'm the teacher." I believe is how he put it. 

Thomas: I said, "You're a Johnny-come-lately" basically. 

Stewart: Did you really? Very nice.

     

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