Helen Thomas Retires Immediately

Helen Thomas, the Grande Dame of the White House Press Corps, has announced her immediate retirement. It's because of this:



How someone as media savvy as she is supposed to be can look into a camera and say such anti-Semitic comments that invoke the Holocaust is beyond me. But to be fair, maybe she thought she was talking to the questioner's boutonniere and not a microphone at all.

Two explanations for her brazenness come to mind. Either she is still living in the Dark Ages of ink and paper and has had no idea before her clever little answers went viral that there's an electronic medium invented by none other than Al Gore, or she counted on her like-minded Israel-hating lefties in the mainstream media to have her back on this and not report it. Or both.

In fact, most of the MSM didn't bother to report Helen's comments. They didn't report her apology much either, because then they'd have to explain what she was apologizing for. Can't have that. Here's how the New York Daily News described her apology:

Thomas posted a lukewarm apology on her personal Web site.

"I deeply regret my comments I made last week regarding the Israelis and the Palestinians. They do not reflect my heartfelt belief that peace will come to the Middle East only when all parties recognize the need for mutual respect and tolerance. May that day come soon," she wrote.

Umm... Yeah.

On the Politico article I linked to at the top, I like the way Larry, a commenter, reworded her apology:

A more accurate statement would read: "I deeply regret that I my long standing anti-semitism was captured on videotape, and in light of this becoming public knowledge, I am no longer employable and have decided to retire."

That's more like the truth, not that the MSM was around with that kind of anaylsis. No, most of the MSM coverage started when her agency threw her out faster than I shake off a spider that starts crawling on my hand. It continued when a high school canceled her appearance where she was to give the graduation speech. And then the rest of the media had to start covering the whole thing too, when Helen found herself suddenly without a job.

It's an ugly affair, start to finish, but there's a glimmer of hope in it. Sometimes--not very often, but every once in a long while--someone prominent with hate in her (or his) heart gets her comeuppance. Now maybe the other Israel-haters in the media will stand up and take notice and not be so quick to condemn Israel.

I won't be holding my breath, though.