Categorical Aperitif

I can't honestly say that I liked Helen Thomas all that much, and I can't honestly say that I found her "go back to Germany and Poland" remark anything less than appalling. I can honestly say, though, that this Daily Show takedown of the giggling cretins vying for her front-row chair:

...goes nicely with the thoughts of William Rivers Pitt:

Like Helen Thomas, I was one of the reporters out there who strenuously pushed back against the war rhetoric from the Bush White House, rhetoric which was inevitably parroted and amplified by the mainstream media. Unlike Helen Thomas, I made very little headway in altering the narrative. Thomas, from her front-row seat in the press room, was a very public thorn in the side of every Bush press secretary who tried to sell the public a bill of rotten goods.

Had the press and the Bush administration paid heed to Helen Thomas, there would not be 5,000 new graves at Arlington National Cemetery. There would not be 40,000 plus wounded American soldiers. There would not be thousands and thousands more suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder and other ailments, who are unable to get proper treatment from an over-stressed Veterans Affairs' system. There would not have been soldiers left to rot in Walter Reed. There would not be more than a million dead and maimed Iraqis. The Sunnis would not have been massacred, and Iran would not now be in full control of Iraq. There would not have been hundreds of billions of our tax dollars poured into the sand and into the coffers of Bush-friendly "defense" contractors; they call our current economic situation the "Great Recession," but by rights, it should be called the "Iraq Recession," and it would not be as bad as it is had we listened to Helen Thomas.

Perhaps, these things were inevitable. Bush and his crew wanted a war, and if the entire press corps had been made up of Helen Thomas clones, it is entirely possible we would have wound up mired in that filthy conflict anyway. But Thomas tried when her colleagues did not. Thomas asked sharp questions when her colleagues refused. Thomas wrote the truth when her colleagues reprinted Bush administration talking points to protect their seats in the press room. Helen Thomas was right, did right, just as she has done with every administration since John F. Kennedy.

One stupid comment cannot wash away 60 years of credibility and honor. One stupid comment cannot wash away the fight she waged against the Bush administration's criminal campaign in Iraq. One stupid comment cannot wash away the fact that, by her very existence, Helen Thomas exposed the mainstream media for what they are, and no matter how vigorously they jump on her today, they all know the blood remains on their hands.

And that's true no matter how many times Rahm Emanuel sprays them with his Super Soaker.