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A Giant of Journalism Comes Up Short
"What went wrong that so many governments and people around the world now not only disagree with you very strongly, but see the U.S. under your leadership as an arrogant power?"
"There are a lot of people in this country . . . who still wonder why blood has to be shed if he hasn't attacked us."
  President Clinton presented White House correspondent Helen Thomas with a birthday cake in 1997. Her book discusses changes in the press corps. (By Ruth Fremson -- Associated Press) |
"Do you ever worry . . . that this could lead to more terrorism, more anti-American sentiment, more instability in the Middle East?"
"What can you say tonight, sir, to the sons and the daughters of the Americans who served in Vietnam to assure them that you will not lead this country down a similar path in Iraq?"
This is quiescent and obsequious? Perhaps Thomas was hoping the White House press corps would be more like the one she describes covering John F. Kennedy:
"I began covering President Kennedy after the 1960 election. I never revised my opinion that he was the most inspired leader of the last half of the twentieth century. Although he had only a thousand days in office before he was assassinated on November 22, 1963, I felt that he had more than made his mark in history, if only through his eloquent speeches. But there was more: the creation of the Peace Corps; the signing of the first nuclear test ban treaty; and his goal to land men on the moon in a decade, a dream fulfilled after he died."
In the press room, she continues, "The atmosphere was chummy. Kennedy would walk through a large reception room where reporters and photographers lounged about and he would banter with us. His wit was ever ready, and he seemed to relish the give-and-take."
She goes on to mention that "I was invited to a state dinner as a guest by nearly every president I covered."
This is not to take anything away from Thomas's long and impressive career in the White House press corps. Neither should it be said that the press did a wonderful job in the run-up to war in Iraq; the self-critiques are voluminous.
But the press was hardly the only institution caught napping on the story of weapons of mass destruction (congressional oversight committees, Democratic leaders and a lethargic public come to mind). And the sort of questioning Thomas currently practices, amounting to argument more than query, is not the sort of questioning any generation of journalists practiced -- not even in the salad days of United Press International, before it collapsed and Thomas became a Hearst columnist.
Here's a sampling of Thomas's questions from White House briefings.
On Saddam Hussein and Iraq: "For 11 years he's been contained, and everybody knows that. . . . I don't think you should keep threatening war every day. . . . This is a question of conquest. They didn't ask to be liberated by the United States. This is our self-imposed political solution for them."
