Posted on 03/01/2005 5:51:11 PM PST by tgslTakoma
WASHINGTON, 2 March 2005 — Arab bashing reached a new low in Washington last week when Ann Coulter, a loudmouthed, mean-spirited, pro-Bush columnist, decided to defend the White House press pass controversy over faux-reporter James Guckert (a.k.a. Jeff Gannon) by writing in her syndicated column: “Press passes can’t be that hard to come by if the White House allows that old Arab Helen Thomas to sit within yards of the president.”
Thomas, whose Hearst column is distributed by King Features Syndicate, is of Lebanese descent. The former United Press International reporter has been a journalist for nearly 60 years, and has covered every president since John F. Kennedy. She was the first female president of the White House Correspondents Association.
Even her syndicators realized the gaffe. When Coulter’s column was posted on Universal Press Syndicate’s (UPS) website, someone edited out the race-based slur “that old Arab Helen Thomas,” using instead: “that dyspeptic, old Helen Thomas.”
But the “old Arab” reference still appears the column posted on Coulter’s website: www.anncoulter.com/cgi-local/article.cgi.
Coulter was, perhaps, taking a cue from the White House, which has slighted Thomas several times since 2003. During a televised news conference, President George W. Bush deliberately snubbed several reporters he ordinarily calls upon, including journalists from the Washington Post, Newsweek, and USA Today. But the most conspicuous recipient of the Bush freeze-out was Thomas, who has barbed and grilled every president since Kennedy and almost always gets to ask a question. Bush pointedly ignored her.
Bush then dealt Thomas a second slight. By custom, Thomas concludes White House press conferences at the president’s signal by saying, “Thank you, Mr. President.” Bush instead ended the conference with his own sign off, “Thank you for your questions,” and killed a decades-old White House custom. Lastly, she was removed from her front row seat, and delegated to a back seat in the press choir.
Is this treatment due to the fact that Thomas has been critical of the Bush administration? She has condemned the terror-fighting Patriot Act and slammed Bush’s domestic and international policies. She also called the Iraq war “a violation of international policy under any circumstance,” and said it is “immoral.”
But she has never been known to mince her words to any president.
There has been disappointingly little reaction in defense of their colleague by White House journalists.
In an article entitled “Lipstick Fascism,” James Wolcott, a Vanity Fair contributing editor, writes: “I wonder what would happen if a writer, say me, were to refer in a Vanity Fair column to ‘that old Jew Norman Podhoretz’ or, naughtier still, ‘that old Jewess Lucianne Goldberg.’
“Through the magic of exaggeration, I can just imagine the commotion. Daniel Pipes and David Horowitz would blow their respective lids...petitions would file in to Vanity Fair demanding that I be fired, or, for penance, be forced to tour Auschwitz with Prince Harry.
“Arabs of course are fair game on talk radio and the trash punditry, of which Ann Coulter is stringbean queen,” says Wolcott. “Presumably Helen Thomas’s very ancestry, about which I know nothing, makes her an incipient terrorist threat, though presumably commando call boy Jeff Gannon would have been coiled to pounce into action if the octogenarian made any sudden violent moves. Coulter’s typically crass wisecrack is the cartoonish version of the hostile profiling of Arabs and Muslims being conducted all over the neoconservative right, as typified by Michelle Malkin’s pioneer work to excuse the Japanese internment in order to justify the preemptive incarceration of Muslims and other suspicious elements.
“I’m sure this sort of thing doesn’t fluster them in the slightest. Conservatism and sadism have become indivisible,” writes Wolcott.
So what? There is no such thing as a Jewish race either, but I don't like Jews being slurred. Ethnicity and race are often entertwined, as in the cases of the Arabs and the Jews. It was obviously brining up her race for percieved negative implications, again, if true.
But regardless of if it is true or not, one thing is absolutely certain as far as I am concerned: Ann is a demagog. It's time smart conservatives realize this. She does us about as much good as Moore does the Liberals. We are just lucky she's not as successful, or else we might have lost the election.
Under Enthic Groups it says 95% of Lebanon is Arab.
Babs makes a big deal that the old bag is of Lebonese descent. Maybe she ment to say "Lesbianese" to quote an old joke by Ellen.
helen tomas hasn't been CRITICAL of this administration. She has been downright nasty, rude, crude, ignorant, low class and without plain and simple manners. I'm glad President Bush ignored her, banished her from being up front and signed off his own news conference. He IS the President and SHE is JUST A REPORTER and a bad one at that. Too much importance is given to the media and they don't deserve it. Bush took control and the media didn't like it. Tough.
Then you'll love this, from this weeks NR, Mark Steyn:
"A couple years back, President Bush agreed to host the 35th reunion of the Yale graduating class. One of them, Miss Petra Leilani Akwai, had been a Mister back when the president knew her, and there was speculation on the potential awkwardness of the encounter. Here's how it went:
"You might remember me as Peter when we left Yale, " said Petra.
"And now you've come back as yourself," said the president.
That's classic Bush: straightforward, transparent, very human, and kind of goofily sweet."
DNC chairman Howard Dean, on the other hand, gloats on the number of black people at the Democrats' recent gathering (he sess black people, not people) then is quoted on how much he hates the Republicans . . .
George W. Bush, a decent Christian and American who loves his wife. Helen and Howie will never understand, but most of us do.
I am not defending Thomas. She's a crazy, vindictive and stupid old bat. But bad behavior doesn't justify more bad behavior, and mentioning her ethnicity for no particular reason was completely stupid and bigoted.
Not quite as racist as Moore's segment in Fahrenheit 9/11 on the Saudis, mind you, but racist all the same. I personally think they deserve each other.
So, if I understand the article, it is ok for Helen Thomas to be an outspoken old sea hag, and for the press corps to trash Guckert and attack Coulter, but not OK for Coulter to call Thomas old or Arab, both of which she is? Hmmm...
You sound like a bigot.
Second, I find her statement both amusing and justified.
Coulter is brilliant and a member of the conservative team. While Savage occasionally goes off the deep end, he means well and his loyalties are with us.
"Her and Mike Savage...should be shunned." Hate to disappoint you, but it ain't gonna happen. Perhaps you can persuade DoJ that this "slur" amounts to a hate crime...
The problem is the constant expansion of the use of the term "racism" where it is NOT either justified or accurate. It is typical of all the actions of the left to re-define language to mean what THEY think it should mean, and I get damned sick and tired of it.
Frankly, I'm of the "sticks and stones" school of thought---anyone should be able to call anyone else whatever they damned well please. Transgression happens when things move from the "talk" phase to the "action" phase.
"Bush then dealt Thomas a second slight. By custom, Thomas concludes White House press conferences at the president’s signal by saying, “Thank you, Mr. President.” Bush instead ended the conference with his own sign off, “Thank you for your questions,” and killed a decades-old White House custom. Lastly, she was removed from her front row seat, and delegated to a back seat in the press choir."
Thomas is obnoxious as hell. Her syndicated opinion rag is a plague of idiocy.
Helen Thomas is a very poor columnist - sort of a Fifth Columnist.
I agree. She is not old, she is youth deprived.
Whats dispicable is letting that old hag deplete the oxygen in the pressroom. In so far as her race is concerned, she acts more like an arab that an American.
Having two first names should have been a tip-off;)
I love the fact that America's enemies hate Ann Coulter . . . Makes me love her all the more!
Ms. Coulter's venom may be what it takes to expose the left. She has a big mouth and knows how to use it.
" Press passes can't be that hard to come by if the White House allows that old Arab Helen Thomas to sit within yards of the president. Still, it would be suspicious if Dowd were denied a press pass while someone from "Talon News" got one, even if he is a better reporter. "
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.