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President Obama May Not Remember Vietnam Turmoil WASHINGTON -- President Barack Obama insists that his decision to escalate the war in Afghanistan by sending in 30,000 more troops is not Vietnam all over again. Well, it sure reminds me of the perils and the price of that unwinnable war in Southeast Asia and the political chaos it wreaked at home. In Afghanistan, the designated enemies are remnants of the weakened al-Qaida network and the native Taliban, which has been growing in strength despite the eight-year war started by President George W. Bush in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 catastrophe....

Helen Thomas is thankful this Thanksgiving for having the first what? Video Straight Ahead...

WASHINGTON -- The Nobel Peace crown lies uneasy on President Barack Obama’s head as he ponders the next U.S. move in Afghanistan, with hints and leaks showering down to tell us that he will eventually send thousands more troops there. His decision -- which could be announced soon -- was triggered by the request from Gen. Stanley McChrystal for 40,000 more troops to secure the cities and protect the citizens of Afghanistan, in addition to the 68,000 U.S. troops there now. Obama has been reviewing the U.S. role in Afghanistan for months, a time-consuming study that has led to accusations...

WASHINGTON -- The Palestinians had hoped they would see a new day coming after the Bush administration’s eight-year capitulation to all that Israel wanted. But they were wrong. The Obama administration is moving down the same Bush road -- perhaps a little slower -- but nonetheless still enabling the Israelis to continue to violate international law and the U.N. Charter by annexing occupied Arab land. First, the new administration made it clear that U.S. policy opposed new Jewish settlements on the West Bank. This declaration was met with a thumping rejection from the Israeli government led by Benjamin Netanyahu. Then,...

WASHINGTON -- White House press secretaries often have a higher public profile than the president himself. They take the blows often meant for the president but they rarely get the bows. The passing of Jody Powell of a heart attack at the age of 65 brought back memories of his years as press secretary to President Jimmy Carter. Powell was like a son to Carter. So it was left to Carter to go to a nursing home to inform Jody’s ailing mother that he had died Sept. 14 while gathering firewood at his Eastern Maryland home. Powell had been Carter’s...

WASHINGTON -- President Barack Obama’s leadership is being tested on two historic fronts: health care reform and U.S. involvement in Afghanistan. By the time he has made decisions on these two titanic issues, we will know whether he has the courage to make tough calls and we will know more about his bottom-line principles. On health care, Obama thought he had learned lessons from 1993 when Hillary Clinton, then the first lady, was put in charge of developing a universal health plan when her husband was president. She flunked partly because she did not touch base with Congress. She didn’t...

Veteran White House reporter Helen Thomas on Monday advised the Obama administration to stand down and avoid fighting with Fox News and its correspondents. In an interview with MSNBC, the columnist -- who is promoting her new book on presidents and their campaigns -- also stressed the White House ought to "stay out of these fights." "They can only take you down. You can't kill the messenger," said Thomas, who has covered every president from John F. Kennedy to Barack Obama. Whether the White House takes her advice, however, is another story. Just this weekend, Senior Adviser David Axelrod charged...

Veteran White House reporter Helen Thomas on Monday advised the Obama administration to stand down and avoid fighting with Fox News and its correspondents. In an interview with MSNBC, the columnist -- who is promoting her new book on presidents and their campaigns -- also stressed the White House ought to "stay out of these fights." "They can only take you down. You can't kill the messenger," said Thomas, who has covered every president from John F. Kennedy to Barack Obama. Whether the White House takes her advice, however, is another story. Just this weekend, Senior Adviser David Axelrod charged...

Veteran White House reporter Helen Thomas on Monday advised the Obama administration to stand down and avoid further fighting with Fox News and its correspondents. In an interview with MSNBC, the columnist -- who is promoting her new book on presidents and their campaigns -- also stressed the White House ought to "stay out of these fights." "They can only take you down. You can't kill the messenger," said Thomas, who has covered every president from John F. Kennedy to Barack Obama.

WASHINGTON -- President Barack Obama has no plans to pull U.S. troops out of Afghanistan. After eight years of war there, withdrawal is not among the options the administration is considering as it designs a new strategy. Also not being considered is any exploration of possible peace talks with the Taliban, the indigenous Islamic group that once controlled large swaths of Afghanistan. When asked whether the U.S. could withdraw from Afghanistan -- a country known as the "graveyard of empires" -- White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said: "That’s not something that has ever been entertained." "I don’t think we have...

Here is video of Helen Thomas pressing White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs yesterday over whether President Obama still supports a "Public Option" for Health Care, and whether he will "fight for it." Gibbs customarily dodged the question, and Thomas called him on it, saying she continues to ask about it because "I want your conscience to bother you." . . . (VIDEO)

WASHINGTON -- It isn't easy to put words in the mouth of the president of the United States, but the White House stable of speechwriters does that almost every day. The frustrations of such a prestigious post are painfully recalled by Matt Latimer, a former speechwriter for President George W. Bush, in his new book "Speech-Less." The subtitle of the book by the conservative speechwriter is "Tales of a White House Survivor." Latimer's book divulges rich insights into the Bush White House. The rivalries, the egos, the fears and the trepidations of having written a prime time speech only to...

WASHINGTON -- Have you noticed a climate of hate and mean spiritedness in the land? Whether inspired by racism or not, it certainly exists. This isn’t a unique psychological phenomenon. Remember the brutal anti-unionism of the 1930s, the McCarthy-era anti-communist scare of the 1950s and the Vietnam War protests of the 1960s and early 1970s? President Barack Obama -- the first black U.S. president -- tries diligently to reject claims that racism underlies the public rancor against his health care reform plan and other administration aspirations. He acknowledged recently that there are "some people out there who don’t like me...

WASHINGTON -- Do presidents and other public officials lie? Do birds fly? That age-old question was recently evoked when Rep. Joe Wilson, R-S.C., shouted "You lie" after President Barack Obama told a joint session of Congress that his national health care proposal would not cover illegal immigrants. Wilson’s verbal attack was reminiscent of the back benchers in London’s House of Commons where rhetorical bombast is more frequent than in the halls of Congress. Wilson apologized for his blast but that didn’t stop the House from voting 240-179 to rebuke him for a breach of decorum "to the discredit of the...

Conservatives Claim Obama Pushing Socialist Agenda WASHINGTON -- What have we come to when conservative politicians and parents tell their children not to listen to President Barack Obama? It turned out that his message in his back-to-school address to students was good old-fashioned advice: Stay in school and study hard. The right wingers had claimed the president wanted to promote his "socialist agenda" and involve the federal government in educating their children because of his speech, timed to coincide with the start of the school year. Would they really eliminate Uncle Sam’s financial support of public schools? Of course not....

WASHINGTON -- It’s no surprise that former Vice President Dick Cheney is opposed to the Justice Department’s decision to investigate the torture of prisoners during the Bush-Cheney administration. After all, Cheney has acknowledged that he was "aware" of waterboarding (simulated drowning) of detainees to get them to talk. It’s fair speculation that the orders for this method of torture came from on high. And in the Bush-Cheney administration, no one was higher than the vice president. Cheney has blasted Attorney General Eric Holder’s appointment of a special prosecutor to investigate abuse of prisoners. The duty fell to veteran Connecticut lawyer...

President Obama should stop trying to win bipartisan support for national health care reform legislation.Obama seems loath to put pressure on fellow Democrats to embrace a government-run health insurance program as part of his reform plan.Instead, the president has waffled on this key point, most recently saying that it's "only a sliver" of his health care reform goals.This mushy approach is designed to win Republican votes in Congress. But Obama should recognize that hard-line Republicans are never going to support his health reform program because, for them, the Obama health proposals are a sideshow. Their real goal is to limit...

WASHINGTON -- To win concessions from the hardliners on Capitol Hill, President Barack Obama appeared as though he was ready to give up a jewel in the crown of health reform -- the government-run public option. But after liberal Democrats put up a squawk, the White House scaled back, insisting the president’s commitment to the public option hasn’t changed. Will the real President Obama please stand up? Why doesn’t the president come out and say exactly where he stands, where he draws the line? The problem is that for President Obama, there is no "line" on health care. It appears...

DEARBORN, Mich. -- The Arab American National Museum in Dearborn could land a sculpture of veteran White House correspondent Helen Thomas. ~snipMcElhinney sculpted a clay version of a Thomas bust.

DEARBORN, Mich. - The Arab American National Museum in Dearborn could land a sculpture of veteran White House correspondent Helen Thomas. Spokeswoman Kim Silarski said Friday the museum, which already displays one of Thomas' vintage typewriters, was approached by former White House photographer Susan Tinsley McElhinney. McElhinney sculpted a clay version of a Thomas bust. Donations are being sought for the tribute. Thomas was born to Lebanese immigrants in Winchester, Ky., and raised in Detroit, where she graduated from Wayne State University. The longtime United Press International reporter now is a Heart Newspapers columnist. Thomas turned 89 on Aug. 4,...

WASHINGTON -- It’s all so sad. Well-organized conservatives have launched a full-scale attack on health care reform. And they appear to be winning -- for now. Their victory strategy involves deliberate distortions of the truth and scare tactics. Under the plans Congress is considering, a government bureaucrat will come between you and your doctor, their TV ads intone ominously. You will lose your private health insurance, dumping you into an inferior government plan. You won’t be able to choose your doctor, they say. The desperate opposition also claims we will have "socialized medicine," rationed care and forced euthanasia for the...

WASHINGTON -- President Barack Obama should stick to his guns in pressuring Israel to stop building settlements on Palestinian land. The Israeli land grabs that result in more settlements on the West Bank and the forced eviction of Palestinians in East Jerusalem are clearly violations of international law. The Israeli leadership knows what it is doing and hopes it still has a green light and open-ended support from U.S. policy makers, just as it did in the administration of President George W. Bush. Bush was totally sympathetic with all Israeli military moves, including the catastrophic bombing of Gaza. His administration...

Following a testy exchange during Wednesday’s briefing with White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs, veteran White House correspondent Helen Thomas told CNSNews.com that not even Richard Nixon tried to control the press the way President Obama is trying to control the press. “Nixon didn’t try to do that,” Thomas said. “They couldn’t control (the media). They didn’t try. “What the hell do they think we are, puppets?” Thomas said. “They’re supposed to stay out of our business. They are our public servants. We pay them.”Thomas said she was especially concerned about the arrangement between the Obama Administration and a writer...

Here is video at a White House Press Briefing today where longtime White House Correspondent Helen Thomas tells Press Secretary Robert Gibbs, "You are failing to sell Health Care." Thomas told Gibbs, "You've neither clarified your point of view or sold it." Gibbs responded that "the President has had a pretty good week." . . . . (Watch Video)

Here is video today of President Obama leading in singing "Happy Birthday" to longtime White House Correspondent Helen Thomas. Today is also Obama's birthday. He is 48. After singing "Happy Birthday," Obama sat down next to Thomas and put his arm around her for photos. . . . . . (Watch Video)

...Obama told her to make a wish on the candle: "You have to blow it out to make it come true." "She and I also had a common birthday wish. She said she hopes for a real health care proposal," Obama joked. "I will leave it up to you, Helen, how you wish to distribute the cupcakes."

Curious locals flocked to the home of owner Feng Changlin after news of the piglet spread in Fengzhang village, Xiping township. “It’s hideous. No one will be willing to buy it, and it scares the family to even look at it!” Feng told Oriental Today.

WASHINGTON -- Strong support for health care reform comes from Americans from all walks of life. Thousands of doctors and nurses are on board in support of broad-ranging reform that would bring the security of health coverage to millions of people who lack it. A new Gallup Poll released Wednesday shows that 44 percent of Americans believe a new reform law would improve medical care in the U.S., while 26 percent said it would improve their personal medical care. The insurance industry and some of the medical moguls continue to demonize health care reform as "socialism." The broadcast wing of...

"The only security of all is in a free press. The force of public opinion cannot be resisted when permitted freely to be expressed. The agitation it produces must be submitted to. It is necessary, to keep the waters pure." -- Thomas Jefferson to Lafayette, 1823 On occasion a particular revelation or thought may cause one to laugh out loud. An hour after watching the White House briefing recently where seasoned reporter Helen Thomas took Robert Gibbs to task for White House efforts to control the media, I laughed aloud. It occurred to me, at this rather seasoned stage of...

At the White House press briefing today, left-wing Air America radio talk show host Bill Press asked Robert Gibbs, "Is there anything you can say that will make the birthers go away?" To which Gibbs replied, Oh, please, please don't make me talk about an issue that makes conservatives look like a bunch of nutjobs. I paraphrase. You can read the full exchange after the jump. But I thought it was curious that Helen Thomas seemed to think that concerns that Obama is not really a U.S. citizen are legitimate (some of the following exchange was left out of the...

Where has Helen Thomas been for the last, two pressers?

In late October, a Pew Research Center survey found 70 percent Americans thought the news media wanted Barack Obama to win the presidency; what election the rest of the country was watching is unknown. On Election Day, upward of 85 percent of "journalists" voted for him, compared with just 53 percent of Americans, and after Inauguration Day, those who didn't get jobs in his administration went back to carrying his water. Their bias has not been lost on veteran White House correspondent Helen Thomas, who heretofore reflexively supported liberal Democratic policies and politicians. Also not escaping her detection is the...

WASHINGTON -- Secrecy is endemic in all governments. It goes with the turf, especially if their leaders hope to hide illegal or immoral behavior, such as torture of foreign prisoners. Many Americans heaved a sigh of relief last January when President Barack Obama banned the torture of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Image-wise, it made the administration look more humane than the Bush-Cheney team. But that is not the whole story. Obama left unaddressed the possibility of torture in secret foreign prisons under our control as in Abu Ghraib in Iraq or Bagram in Afghanistan, not to mention the "black...

WASHINGTON -- I had an historical flashback recently when I read a Washington Post news story about how the U.S. commander in Afghanistan thinks he may need many thousands more troops to win the war. Shades of Vietnam. Do we ever learn? It brought back memories of the late Gen. William C. Westmoreland, the U.S. commander in Southeast Asia, who kept escalating the troop numbers after the 1967 Tet offensive in Vietnam. His strategy produced a debacle for us. When the besieged Westmoreland requested 240,000 more troops, President Lyndon B. Johnson was shocked. The command in Vietnam had been giving...

I had an historical flashback recently when I read a Washington Post news story about how the U.S. commander in Afghanistan thinks he may need many thousands more troops to win the war. Shades of Vietnam. Do we ever learn? It brought back memories of the late Gen. William C. Westmoreland, the U.S. commander in Southeast Asia, who kept escalating the troop numbers after the 1967 Tet offensive in Vietnam. His strategy produced a debacle for us. When the besieged Westmoreland asked for 240,000 more troops, President Lyndon B. Johnson was shocked. The command in Vietnam had been giving him...

From AIM: "Even with the Marxist influence in President Obama's background-and even with the reluctance to raise his voice against bloodthirsty tyrants such as Iran's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad-even with all of that, trust Helen Thomas to find Obama too hard-line with America's enemies and too easy-going with America's friends..."

WASHINGTON -- It’s not news when the White House tries to manage the news. That has always been the case. But it is news when Obama administration officials -- the folks who proclaimed that they would bring unprecedented openness and transparency to government -- fall all over themselves trying to manipulate news briefings and attempting amateurish stagecraft at public meetings. The president relies on a list of handpicked reporters to call on at his formal news conferences -- and the fortunate few are not necessarily accredited reporters but include new age self-appointed journalists or anyone with a laptop. The White...

If, somehow, by the grace of God...or in this case...by the grace of NOW...these two were...just...maybe...able to combine their DNA (again to the well of mad science, he goes!), the results would be astounding.

Helen Thomas, reporter is 89-years-old and has been covering White House presidents since John F. Kennedy plus she is an ultra-Liberal so when she takes exception at the Obama administration’s relationship with the press, well it’s simply “Shocking!” In fact shocking is the word that Ms. Thomas used while describing what she and all other White House reporters are experiencing due to the machinations of the Obama White House. (see story) Ms Thomas told CNS News that the Obama White House, which is self proclaimed as the most open and transparent administration in American history, is in the contrary the...

WASHINGTON -- The withdrawal of U.S. military forces from Baghdad and other key cities in Iraq marks the beginning of the end of the tragic war there. While it’s not over yet, the Iraqis are celebrating and happy -- free at last from American control. Well, almost. We have had six-and-one-half years of the on-going conflict, with American war dead totaling 4,320 and more than 31,000 wounded. More than 100,000 Iraqis also were killed and thousands more wounded. Add some 4 million refugees to those formidable numbers of human cost. Then there is the small matter of an estimated $682...

Health Reform: A Senate health care bill will force Americans to buy health insurance whether they want it or not. Where the extra doctors to treat them will come from is anybody's guess...Debby Smith, the uninsured cancer patient hugged by President Obama, is also a Democratic operative. She is a member of Organizing For America, a group that is a project of the Democratic National Committee, and Smith was invited to the event by the White House itself...Acknowledging that many are uninsured because they choose to be, a Senate version of medical reform imposes fines of $1,000 for uninsured people...

Health Reform: A Senate health care bill will force Americans to buy health insurance whether they want it or not. Where the extra doctors to treat them will come from is anybody's guess.When even the venerable Helen Thomas gets upset at an Obama show and tell, you know the sales job for health care reform and other goodies is not going well. "I'm amazed at you people who call for openness and transparency," said Thomas, a view we share. Thomas accused the White House of "controlling the press" and said just about all Obama events are "prepackaged." White House press...

I apologize for how ridiculously late these digg suggestions are, but life got hectic and I just wasn't able to get to them yesterday. Nonetheless, here you go! http://diggsandburies.blogspot.com/

Even Big Lib Helen Thomas (2nd half) pipes in: "The point is the control from here. We have never had that in the White House. And we have had some control but not this control. I mean I'm amazed, I'm amazed at you people who call for openness ... Could this be the beginning of the end of the slobbering love affair with the press?

White House spokesman Robert Gibbs and the Obama administration found the press corps slightly less friendly than they are used to yesterday, when CBS's Chip Reid asked why the questions for Wednesday’s town hall on healthcare were being selected beforehand. Gibbs tried to dodge the issue, and asked for it to be asked after the town hall meeting in question, but then Helen Thomas became involved, saying, “We have never had that in the White House. I’m amazed that you people … call for openness and transparency.” Reid and Thomas didn't let up for a second, especially Thomas. To see...

A friend emailed this morning to say he couldn’t believe what he heard Mika Brzezinski say on Morning Joe today regarding yesterday’s press briefing where Helen Thomas and Chip Reid asked Robert Gibbs several questions about President Obama’s so-called “Town Hall” on health care yesterday: The question I would have for her [Helen] is if she felt she could ask that question during the Bush administration and get that aggressive. Seriously? I almost injured myself when I fell over laughing when I read that comment. I am no longer a spokesperson, but I feel I can speak for all of...

Helen Thomas hits White House for lack of transparency Thursday, 02 July 2009 11:11 President Barack Obama answered pre-selected questions Wednesday afternoon about health care sent in from emails, Facebook and Twitter. CBS’ Chip Reid and columnist Helen Thomas thought this reflected a lack of transparency at the White House. “It feels like the concept of a town hall, I think, is to have an open public forum. And this sounds like a very tightly controlled audience and list of questions. Why do it that way?” asked Reid.

CLICK LINK TO WATCH VIDEO... Helen Thomas, the Associated Democrat Press White House reporter for the last 832 years, called the Obama Administration’s control of the media “Shocking!” Unbelievable. Shocking. I don’t want to go overboard and call in “encouraging.” However, I will note that the Obama Socialist Nationalization of healthcare will be in trouble if they piss off the likes of Helen Thomas and Chip Reed. Helen Thomas admits that the Obama Administration calls reporters the night before press conferences to let them know they will be called on! This White House is so afraid that its own President...

  Helen Thomas: “I’m not saying there has never been managed news before, but this is carried to fare-thee-well--for the town halls, for the press conferences,” she said. “It’s blatant. They don’t give a damn if you know it or not. They ought to be hanging their heads in shame.”    Obama's administration is arrogant. Who'd thought so?Is slobbering love affair over? I don't think so, the media is too deeply in bed with Obama to turn on him yet, but it's a good start - somebody retained some journalistic decorum, maybe some principals too.No graphic photos, please.   Helen Thomas...