Free Republic

AUSTIN, Texas (Creators Syndicate) -- Several great minds were asked to help think up interview questions for George W. Bush. I liked, "Are you the worst president since James Buchanan, or have you never heard of him?" Sorry about the snarkiness quotient, but is there anything these folks can't screw up -- and then refuse to own up to? Iraq is the most difficult to judge because it's so far away. I can find no indication -- from hours of electricity available to amount of oil being pumped to number of dead people -- that hints at any improvement. On...

President Bush today again avoided taking a question from White House doyenne Helen Thomas during his 45-minute press conference, even though he took questions from every reporter around her front-row, center seat. "He's a coward," Thomas said afterward. "He's supposed to be this macho guy. He'll take on Osama bin Laden, but he won't take me on." Thomas, who worked as the UPI White House reporter for 57 years and is now a columnist, raised her hand every time the president was concluding an answer to a reporter's question, but he never called on her. Thomas, who worked as the...

Entertainer and human rights activist Harry Belafonte speaks during a press conference at the Arts Presenters Members Conference in New York, Saturday, Jan. 21, 2006 . Belafonte called U.S. President George W. Bush 'the greatest terrorist in the world' in a recent television broadcast. (AP Photo/Shiho Fukada)

Andy Rooney: Schieffer 'Embarrassing' CBS News CBS’s ‘60 Minutes’ curmudgeon Andy Rooney says Bob Schieffer is "embarrassing the hell out of CBS.” In a televised appearance with CNN’s Larry King, Rooney said Schieffer should keep the job he was assigned on an interim basis after the departure of former ‘CBS Evening News’ anchor Dan Rather. CBS has been in hot pursuit of NBC ‘Today Show’ co-host Katie Couric as a possible "news celebrity” replacement for Schieffer on the Evening News program. The Tiffany network has reportedly offered Couric $20 million to leave NBC and take the job. Rooney suggested CBS...

Helen is at it again I can't think of a better way to illustrate feeble-minded 9/10 thinking than to memorialize this little exchange between Helen Thomas and White House press secretary Scott McClellan from today's daily press briefing: THOMAS: Scott! Why do you keep linking Iraq and 9/11 and so forth? Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11. And you keep--we started the war in Iraq. We brought the terrorists in, so-called (makes quote-unquote gestures with her fingers). People are dying every day in Iraq...

2005: Not Bush's Year Administration Claims Successes, However Helen Thomas, Hearst White House columnist All things considered, 2005 was a bad year for President George W. Bush. He had no big hits and no runs but lots of errors. The president got some good news last week when his public approval rating jumped to 47 percent in the Washington Post-ABC News Poll. The war in Iraq and the administration's faltering response to the hurricanes had earlier eroded his poll standing to around 37 percent. At that point, it seems the White House went into a panic mode. To boost his...

POSTED: 3:46 pm EST December 23, 2005 President George W. Bush poses a curious contradiction: He admits his decision to attack Iraq was based on faulty intelligence, but he insists that it was the right step to take. "My decision to remove Saddam Hussein was the right decision," he told an audience at the Woodrow Wilson International Center on Dec. 14. Well, let's think about that: 2,161 Americans killed in action; thousands maimed for life; 30,000 Iraqis, "more or less," as Bush put it, have been killed and thousands more wounded. Iraqi cities have been battered by U.S. bombing, car...

American Profile, a popular weekly, four-color magazine that celebrates hometown American life, put Walter Cronkite on its cover in its November 20 edition, calling him "the most trusted man in America." That's what he was called back in 1973 when most people didn't know any better. There's no reason to call him that today. The former CBS Evening News anchorman played a pivotal role in America's Vietnam defeat and the deaths of millions. Cronkite is also notable for becoming an ardent advocate of world government in his old age. In retirement, he has come out of the liberal closet in...

Chris Wallace: Mike Wallace Has 'Lost It' "Fox News Sunday" anchorman Chris Wallace says father Mike Wallace has "lost it" - after the legendary CBS newsman told the Boston Globe last week that the fact George Bush had been elected president shows America is "[expletive]-up." "He's lost it. The man has lost it. What can I say," the younger Wallace lamented to WRKO Boston radio host Howie Carr on Friday. "He's 87-years old and things have set in," the Fox anchor continued. "I mean, we're going to have a competence hearing pretty soon." Wallace Jr. quickly dispelled any notion that...

Former CBS anchorman Walter Cronkite, in an appearance Friday on CNN's "Larry King Live," said Americans are too dumb to vote for the right candidates. "We're an ignorant nation right now," Mr. Cronkite said. "We're not really capable, I do not think the majority of our people, of making the decisions that have to be made at election time ....in the selection of their legislatures and their Congress and the presidency, of course." ...... "I don't think we're bright enough to do the job that would preserve our democracy, our republic. I think we're in serious danger."

He's in his late 80s, a little unsteady on the legs and, as he describes it, "as deaf as a damn post." Former "CBS Evening News" anchor Walter Cronkite might be a lion in winter, but during a brief visit to Los Angeles earlier this week he showed that he's still a lion. Cronkite, who retired from the anchor chair in 1980, has had a quarter-century to watch broadcast news from the sidelines, and he doesn't think the current generation of TV journalists is doing a bad job. Corporate broadcast owners, though, are another story, says Cronkite. He believes they...

Monday, Oct. 3, 2005 6:56 a.m. EDT Walter Cronkite: U.S. Too Ignorant to Vote The man once known as the most trusted journalist in America no longer trusts Americans to vote for their own leaders, saying average citizens are just too ignorant to cast their ballots wisely. "We [as a nation] are not educated well enough to perform the necessary act of intelligently selecting our leaders," CBS News legend Walter Cronkite told the University of Southern California's Annenberg School for Communication last week. In quotes picked up by the Los Angeles Times, Cronkite said journalists need to find a way...

Get ready this evening for a real liberal tirade against the Military Industrial Complex. Watch Andy Rooney on 60 Minutes this evening (barf bag needed) Bottom line: Andy is upset programs may be cut like prescription drugs and (oh no, no, no) NPR.

Comedian George Carlin, 67, known for his shockingly obscene monologues got himself in trouble in Las Vegas recently – but not because of his filthy mouth. In the his last performance at the MGM Grand after four years before 700 paying customers, he reportedly said: "People who go to Las Vegas, you've got to question their f-----g intellect – traveling hundreds and thousands of miles to essentially give your money to a large corporation is kind of f-----g moronic. That's why what I'm always getting here is these kind of f-----g people with very limited intellects." But that's not the...

Veteran journalist Helen Thomas brought the grit and whir of a White House press conference to Bartos Theater on Monday evening, speaking with passion about the media's role in a democracy whose leaders seem eager for war. Actually, the 82-year-old former United Press International reporter didn't just speak: she surged into her topic, giving everyone present an immediate sense of the grumpy wit and fierce precision that gave her reporting on American presidents Kennedy through Bush II such a competitive and lasting edge. "I censored myself for 50 years when I was a reporter," said Thomas, who is now a...

President Bush's decision to nominate Condoleezza Rice received widespread praise from both Democrats and Republicans. But longtime White House Bureau Chief Helen Thomas, now a syndicated columnist with Hearst, had nothing but contempt for Rice's nomination. The feisty 84-year-old reporter who started at the White House during the Kennedy administration had some unkind words to describe Bush and Condi. NewsMax bumped into Thomas in the lobby of New York's Waldorf-Astoria as she waited for a lunch date. Asked about the election result, the sharp-tongued reporter simply put her hand on her face and said, "My God, the man is a...

CRONKITE: KARL ROVE BEHIND BIN LADEN TAPE Sat Oct 30 2004 16:31:19 ET Former CBSNEWS anchorman Walter Cronkite believes Bush adviser Karl Rove is possibly behind the new Bin Laden tape. Cronkite made the startling comments late Friday during an interview on CNN. Cronkite said he is "inclined to think that Karl Rove, the political manager at the White House, who is a very clever man, he probably set up bin Laden to this thing." Interviewer Larry King did not ask Cronkite to elaborate on the provocative election eve accusation. Developing...

Beware! Do not look upon the Gorgon!The presidential election on Tuesday is one of the most crucial in American history. There are many reasons -- in foreign policy and on the domestic front -- why President George W. Bush should not be reelected. Among them is the dominance of the radical right in his advisory councils, who are taking the United States down the wrong road at the start of the 21st century. The road could lead to more mindless wars abroad and a widening gap between the rich and the poor in this country. There will be only one...

Former President Jimmy Carter said Tuesday that violence in Iraq could be greatly reduced if the U.S. government set a date to withdraw its troops. "The main thing that sustains violence there is the apparent long term presence of U.S. troops," Carter said. Carter was responding to a question posed during the "Conversations at the Carter Center" event, featuring the former president and his wife, Rosalynn. Carter said he would like to see troops withdraw as early as next year if Iraqis show they can establish a self-sustained government. He also said he would be willing to visit Iraq to...

MEDIA MATTERS Helen Thomas defends Rather 'The real issue is why doesn't the president tell us the truth?' -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Posted: September 23, 2004 1:00 a.m. Eastern © 2004 WorldNetDaily.com Helen Thomas Helen Thomas, the so-called "dean of the White House press corps," is not blasting up Dan Rather over his use of unreliable documents about President Bush's military record, but instead is targeting Bush himself. "To me, the real issue is why doesn't the president tell us the truth?" Thomas said Tuesday at a Monmouth University forum on women and journalism in West Long Branch, N.J. "Why doesn't he put...