Postavant

Mind if I offend everyone? There are two things that don’t sit right with the condemnation of White House scribe of Helen Thomas, the 89 year old staple of the White House press room who had basically in my mind become synonymous with it. After a call by Ari Fleischer for her to be fired and disapproval by the White House over her controversial comments regarding the Israeli/Palestinian conflict (if you have not read them, they are after the jump), she announced her retirement today; effective immediately. Get your hard hats on people; I expect an angry comment or two, and at least one of them better contain the word naïveté.

Is her suggestion not feasible? I’d say so; it would be quite a bit difficult to even do what she is proposing, much like my insane “wishful thinking” that the middle east will go derka derka jihad on itself so we can transport all of the impoverished Africans there to make Africa a wildlife reserve. Do I really believe that? …kind of.

Fact of the matter is that there is reason for Helen Thomas to be so furious, yet it is absolutely taboo, somewhat with good reason, that we condemn or criticize Israel in any way. I’ve noticed throughout the years that with the support of the U.S. and the U.N., Israel has used that backup as an excuse to quite bluntly…be massive dicks. I’m not going to go into detail, because I don’t feel like I need to. After that raid on the Gaza relief ship, Helen really does have every right to be furious.

But that isn’t what really matters here, or what even “grinds my gears”. My main reason to not fire her is because she is 89 years old, and honestly, she looks like a melted candle. Helen Thomas is a Washington legend in her own right; just let her keep doing what she’s doing until she eventually perishes, and then condemn her. After decades of good work, one incident this late in her life just seems petty to me. This is something that wouldn’t fly with a 50 year old in there, but she’s nearly 90! I don’t think it’s fair to shame someone like that at the near-end of their life.

And I still feel like I can keep my honorary Jew status that I was awarded after this post.

Tags: 89 years old, Ari Fleischer, Gaza strip, Helen Thomas, Israel, Palestine, press corps, Thomas, Washington

This entry was posted on Monday, June 7th, 2010 at 2:18 pm and is filed under Ancient. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.