EDITION
SECTION THREE
sm
COLUMN
EIGHTY-SEVEN,
MARCH 15, 2003
(Copyright © 2003 The Blacklisted Journalist)
LIKE
NIXON---OR WORSE!
HELEN THOMAS TOPS
BUSH'S 'ENEMIES LIST'
HELEN THOMAS
Is George W(armonger) Bush
competing with Richard (I Am Not A Crook) Nixon to go down in history as the
worst President in American history? Nixon had an "Enemies List? and now
Georgie has one, too. And who's at the top of Georgie's list? Osama bin
Laden? Unh, unh. Saddam Hussein? Hardly.
Turns out that Georgie's
chief "enemy? is none other than 82-year-old Helen Thomas, who has been
covering the White House for Hearst Newspapers for 42 years. Why does Georgie
hate her so much? Because she has bigger balls than any other reporter covering
the unelected President's press briefings. Here's an example of Helen's
ballsiness, as reported in Harper's:
[Interrogation]
GIVE 'EM HELEN
From a January 6 exchange between White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer and Helen Thomas, a columnist for Hearst Newspapers. Thomas, who eighty-two years old, has been covering the White House for forty-two years.
ARI FLEISCHER: Good afternoon and Happy New Year to
everybody. The president began his
day with an intelligence briefing, followed by an FBI briefing.
Then he had a series of poli?cy briefings.
And this afternoon, the president will look forward to a Cabinet meeting
where the president will discuss with members of his Cabinet his agenda for the
year. The president is going to
focus on economic growth, making America a more compassionate country, and
providing for the security of our nation abroad and on the home front.
And with that, I'm more than happy to take your
questions. Helen.
HELEN THOMAS: At the earlier briefing, Ari, you said
that the president deplored the taking of innocent lives.
Does that apply to all innocent lives in the world?
And I have a follow-up.
FLEISCHER: I refer specifically to a horrible terrorist
attack on Tel Aviv that killed scores and wounded hundreds.
And the president, as he said in his statement yesterday, deplores in the
strongest terms the taking of those lives and the wounding of those people,
innocents in Israel.
THOMAS: My follow-up is, why does he want to drop bombs
on innocent Iraqis?
FLEISCHER: Helen, the question is how to protect
Americans, and our allies and friends---
THOMAS:
They're not attacking you.
FLEISCHER:
---from a country---
THOMAS: Have they laid a glove on you or on the United
States, the Iraqis, in eleven years?
FLEISCHER: I guess you have forgotten about the
Americans who were killed in the first Gulf War as a result of Saddam Hussein's aggression then.
THOMAS: Is
this revenge, eleven years of revenge?
FLEISCHER: Helen, I think you know very well that the president's
position is that he wants to avert war, and that the president has asked the
United Nations to go into Iraq to help with the purpose of averting war.
THOMAS: Would the president attack innocent Iraqis?
FLEISCHER: The president wants to make certain that he can defend
our country, defend our interests, defend the region, and make certain that
American lives are not lost.
THOMAS:
And he thinks
they are a threat to us?
FLEISCHER: There is no question that the president thinks that
Iraq is a threat to the United States.
THOMAS:
The Iraqi people?
FLEISCHER: The Iraqi people are represented by their government.
If there was regime change, the Iraqi---
THOMAS:
So they will be
vulnerable?
FLEISCHER: Actually, the president has made it very clear that he has no dispute
with the people of Iraq. That's why
the American policy remains a policy of regime change. There is no question the people of Iraq---
THOMAS:
That's a
decision for them to make, isn't it? It's
their country.
FLEISCHER: Helen, if you think that the people of Iraq are in a
position to dictate who their dictator is, I don't think that has been what
history has shown.
THOMAS: I think many countries don't have---?people don't have the
decision---including us. ##
* * *
GOP
'SMEAR HELEN' CAMPAIGN
Subject: Fw: Helen Thomas
alert. (Cleaned-up ) Read, Act. Pass it on.
Date: Wed, 26 Feb 2003 11:39:15 -0800
From: allan winans <ad1936@juno.com>
To: info@blacklistedjournalist.com
The Senior White House
Press Corp Member Helen Thomas has been attacked and is being smeared by Bush
and Co.
ALERT to defend News legend
Helen Thomas.
Not since Richard M. Nixon
made an enemies list of those in the press and in politics who disagreed with
his policies has a U.S. President launched a public personal attack on a
specific American journalist.
Bush and Co. are out to
"get" Helen Thomas. Helen Thomas is a national treasure, and she has
had the intelligence and bravery to declare that George W. Bush is "the
worst president in American history"!
It's time for supporters of
Helen Thomas to step up to the plate and protect and defend her from the Bush
Family & Friends Assassination Machine.
Write to Bush and tell him
to call off his dogs. Write to any and every newspaper and TV person you can
think of and urge them to come to Helen Thomas' aid. Remind them that anyone who
protects and defends Helen in this hour of crisis defends Freedom of Speech for
ALL journalists!!
George W. Bush at the White
House: president@whitehouse.gov
--------------
DUBYA'S ENEMIES LIST
--Bush Attack On the Dean
Of White House Press Corps Helen Thomas.
--Organized Official
Republican Party Smear Campaign Against Helen Thomas
The Hotline reports, George
W. Bush has mobilized the Republican National Committee to beat up the outspoken
truth-teller, venerated senior White House correspondent, and "First Lady
of the press," Helen Thomas, because she has DARED to criticize his public
policies. Helen Thomas has had the courage to say what many are thinking, that
Bush is "the worst president in all of American history." For
exercising her First Amendment freedom, the entire Republican Party smear
machine has now been deployed against the brave and distinguished journalist.
The Republican National
Committee has sent out a full-scale call to the hardline partisans in its email
data base to destroy Ms. Thomas in response to her criticism of their
"president." By singling her out, the Republicans seek nothing less
than to intimidate the entire press corps:
PRESS PASS: GOP Asks
Activists To Take On Helen Thomas In response to Helen Thomas' recent column
naming Pres. Bush "the worst President in all of American
"Helen Thomas --
Hearst News Service Title: Columnist
Department: Headquarters
E-mail: helent@hearstdc.com
Ask:
Where are the editorials in
the New York Times and in the Washington Post? Where are the press freedom
groups and journalists' defense organizations? Where are Daniel Schorr, Mary
McGrory, and all of the other surviving targets of Nixon's "enemies
list"?
Above all, where is the
board of the White House Correspondents' Association, now that their courageous
colleague Helen Thomas---who has covered every president since John F. Kennedy,
and always commanded the utmost respect---has been targeted in Bush's
* Email the Reporters'
Committee for Freedom of the Press and Bob Deans, President of the White House
Correspondents Association, to demand public statements defending Helen Thomas's
freedom of expression and denouncing George W. Bush for
* Email Helen Thomas to
express your full support against George W. Bush's and the RNC's outrageous
smear campaign against her.
Read this Call to Action
at:
http://www.mediawhoresonline.com/
--------------
Helen Thomas' e-mail
address: helent@hearstdc.com
--Bob Deans, President of
the White House Correspondents Association at: bobdeans@coxnews.com
--Reporters' Committee for
Freedom of the Press at:
rcfp@rcfp.org
--George W. Bush at the
White House:
president@whitehouse.gov
--------------
Following is a media e-mail list:
THE NEW YORK TIMES
letter-to-the-editor: --
WASHINGTON POST
letter-to-the-editor:--
(more Washington Post
e-mail addresses below)
CHICAGO TRIBUNE
letter-to-the-editor: --
http://www.chicago.tribune.com/interact/letters/letted.htm
LOS ANGELES TIMES
letter-to-the-editor: --
TIME magazine,
letter-to-the-editor : --
DAVID BROOKS at the Weekly
Standard: --
WILLIAM KRISTOL at the
Weekly Standard: --
RONALD BROWNSTEIN at the
Los Angeles Times:--
CHARLIE ROSE -- charlierose@pbs.org
TOM BROKAW at NBC
-- Nightly@NBC.com
TIM RUSSERT at NBC -- MTP@NBC.com
BRIAN WILLIAMS at MSNBC -- TheNews@MSNBC.com
TED KOPPEL at NIGHTLINE (or
other ABC newspeople) --
http://abcnews.go.com/onair/email.html
PETER JENNINGS at ABC World
News Tonight --
http://abcnews.go.com/onair/email.html
DAN RATHER (or anyone) at
CBS News --
http://cbsnews.cbs.com/feedback/frameset/0,1712,412,00.html
The Newshour with Jim
Lehrer - newshour@pbs.org
Seattle Times -
opinion@seattletimes.com
San Francisco Examiner -
letters@examiner.com
Portland, Oregon,
StatesmanJournal -
http://news.statesmanjournal.com/letter_input.cfm
Dallas Morning News -
http://dmnweb.dallasnews.com/letters/
Orlando Sentinel -- insight@orlandosentinel.com
Aaron Brown -- aaron.brown@turner.com
Alicia Montgomery: -- alicia@salon.com
Brian Williams: -- TheNews@MSNBC.com
BuzzFlash:-- BuzzFlash@BuzzFlash.com
Charlie Rose: -- charlierose@pbs.org
Chris Suellentrop: -- chrissuellentrop@hotmail.com
Chuck Babington: --
babingtonc@washpost.com
Dan Balz: --
balzd@washpost.com
Dana Milbank -- milbankd@washpost.com
David Brooks: --
dbrooks@weeklystandard.com
Eric Boehlert:--
boehlert@salon.com
Fox News:--
comments@foxnews.com
Frank Bruni: -- bruni@nytimes.com
Frank Rich:
-- frrich@nytimes.com
Gail Collins: --
gailc@nytimes.com
Howard Kurtz:
-- HKurtz@aol.com
Howell Raines:
-- Raines@nytimes.com
Jake Tapper: -- jtapper@salon.com
Jonathan Turley -- JTURLEY@main.nlc.gwu.edu
Leonard Downie: -- downiel@washpost.com
Lou Dobbs -- moneyline@cnn.com
Maureen Dowd: -- dowd@nytimes.com
Media Whores Online: -- mwo@mediawhoresonline.com
Paul Krugman: -- krugman@nytimes.com
Ron Brownstein: -- Ronald.Brownstein@latimes.com
Seattle Times: -- opinion@seattletimes.com
Slate magazine: --
letters@slate.com
Susan Page: -- spage@usatoday.com
Tim Russert: -- MTP@NBC.com
USA Today: -- editor@usatoday.com
Village Voice: -- editor@villagevoice.com
William Kristol: -- editor@weeklystandard.com
William Safire: -- safire@nytimes.com
E-mail addresses at the
Washington Post:
Len Downie, executive
editor of the Washington Post:
Steven Coll, managing
editor of the Washington Post:
Michael Getler, Washington
Post ombudsman:
Chuck Babington: --
babingtonc@washpost.com
Dan Balz:
-- balzd@washpost.com
Dana Milbank
-- milbankd@washpost.com
David Broder
-- broderd@washpost.com
Letters to The Washington
Post: letters@washpost.com
-------
PASS this along to everyone you know and ask everyone to join in the defense of Helen Thomas and the defense of Press Freedom of Speech. ##
CLICK HERE TO GET TO INDEX OF COLUMN EIGHTY-SEVEN
CLICK HERE TO GET TO INDEX
OF COLUMNS
The
Blacklisted Journalist can be contacted at P.O.Box 964, Elizabeth, NJ 07208-0964
The Blacklisted Journalist's E-Mail Address:
info@blacklistedjournalist.com
THE BLACKLISTED JOURNALIST IS A SERVICE MARK OF AL ARONOWITZ