She was the journalist they loved to hate. Her questions at press meetings were blatantly biased and loud, and she made her colleagues writhe in embarrassment whenever she stood to challenge a president. But she had courage and a style all her own. She asked the tough questions no one else dared to bring up, and her loss is our loss as well.She had to be tough to succeed in journalism. Women were few and far between in the world of political journalism when she began. She had to be loud in order to be taken seriously by men in those days, and she wasn't ashamed to be unladylike, either. That she was biased against Israel in no way detracts from her devotion to journalism; she was honest about where she stood, unlike many of her male colleagues, and although I often cringed when she railed against Israel I respected her just the same. This is America, after all, where unpopular opinions are supposed to be feely expressed. She wasn't inciting hatred hatred for Jews. Shame on the cowards who used her latest remarks to oust her! Why should she have been forced to apologize? What, she hurt someone's tender little psyche? This Political Correctness is despicable, and soon none of us will be able to speak freely if this continues.
So she said Jews should go "home", back to Germany and Poland. All right, that may have been insensitive, but surely not the same as saying they should be gassed. If you haven't noticed, neither Germany nor Poland gasses Jews anymore, and Jews have gone to live there in the last decade. She has always been a gadfly, so why should she change now? If she had condemned the Palestinians and demanded they go "home", I doubt if anything would have been said about it.
Yes, I'm a Jew and I care about Israel, but I also care about free speech. The Peter Zenger case, if you'll recall, gave journalists the freedom to report without fear of reprisal. In her case, she had been asked a question and answered it. Opinionated? Yes, but that's Helen Thomas. Her colleagues who, it seemed, used her unfortunate remarks to finally get rid of her should be ashamed. Personal vendettas have no place in journalism.
Goodbye, Helen. We'll miss you. God bless.
