Helen Thomas, trailblazing reporter, dead at 92

Politico ^ | 7/20/2013

[markomalley]

Helen Thomas, whose career covering the White House dated back to the Kennedy administration, died on Saturday at the age of 92, the Gridiron Club announced in an email to members on Saturday.

Thomas was the the first woman to join the White House Correspondents' Association, and the first woman to serve as its president. She was also the first female member of the Gridiron Club, Washington's historic press group.

Present at the press briefings of ten consecutive presidential administrations, Thomas's career in journalism ended in 2010 after controversial remarks she made about Israeli Jews were caught on camera.

"Former Gridiron Club president Helen Thomas, our first female member, died Saturday morning at her Washington apartment after a long illness," Gridiron's Susan L. Hahn wrote in an email to members. "She would have been 93 next month."

[MeneMeneTekelUpharsin]

For the record, her commentary:

Thomas resigned in June after saying on the sidelines of the first Jewish American Heritage Month event at the White House that Jews should "get the hell out of Palestine," in an interview with Rabbi David Nesenoff, a blogger with RabbiLive.com, was captured on video. "Go home," Thomas said. Asked to elaborate on where the Jews in Israel should go, Thomas said, "Poland, Germany and America, and everywhere else."

[Hoosier-Daddy]

I don’t speak ill of the dead, but I just wish the grim reaper wasn’t a civil service job in this case.

[mowowie]

RIP Helen

[seanmerc]

Heard it this morning, but was out of pocket all day. I had plenty of differences with Helen, but today she traveled a path we will all take.

It has always made me upset when libs celebrate the passing of people I admire (for example, Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher). I find that undignified, insensitive and dehumanizing. Therefore, I will not follow that example.

My condolences to Helen’s family and friends. I pray for the salvation of those among them who do not know Jesus.

[catfish1957]

Agreed. I ususally am more reserved, but there are a select few like Ted Kennedy, Hugo Chavez, and this individual who deserve the middle finger in passing.

[Impy]

Post that cheesecake picture of her DJ, once more for old time sake.

[cynwoody]

I couldn't resist. There was a time when she was nice looking, but being a Democrat made her ugly. :-)

LOL!

No way is that our Helen! That's a completely different Helen Thomas "from Sharon, Mercer County, PA. She was a junior at Westminster College in New Wilmington in 1932 when this photograph was taken".

Our dearly beloved Helen would have been 12 years old in 1932. She was born in Kentucky and grew up in Detroit (her parents were Lebanese immigrants (Christian — Greek Orthodox)). She attended Wayne University in Detroit, BA in English, 1942.

[cynwoody]

Now that she has assumed room temperature, there is the possibility that the postal service may put her picture on a postage stamp. Then we would be forced to look at her ugly face everyday.

I'm down to two or three postage stamps a year. My supply of Forever stamps will outlive me.

What doesn't come to me through a glass fiber arrives via FedEx or UPS, not USPS.

[JoeProBono]

[Mark17]

Oh Joe, that is exactly what I didn’t want to see, her face on a postage stamp.

[cynwoody]

Oh Joe, that is exactly what I didn’t want to see, her face on a postage stamp.

It's not beyond the realm of possibility for a traitor to look half-way presentable on a postage stamp.

E.g, Kim Philby, eight years Helen's senior.

[Mark17]

Kim Philby was a real POS. May he rot in Hades. I know we joke a little about Thomas getting on a stamp, but if I am not mistaken, Hitler was man of the year, on a magazine cover at one time, so stranger things have happened.

[Spunky]

Darn Google it misled me. :-(

[Spunky]

Sorry if posting the wrong picture offended anyone. Google is the one that is misleading.

[Clinging Bitterly]

I’d imagine she had friends when she died. They probably saw something in her that they liked.

Can't deny that. I have a cousin who was a one time bureau chief at UPI and worked with her on a daily basis for a time. He loved her very much. I offered my condolences yesterday without saying anything bad about her (much as I wanted to - and he knows what I think about her).

[the OlLine Rebel]

And you thought USPS business was bad before!

[the OlLine Rebel]

I’m not offended. I just tire of inaccuracies spreading, giving the wrong impression. You are hardly the first person with the wrong Helen.

An example of how bad this is is a picture erroneously declared to be of Man O’War on the track. EBay sellers continue this nonsense which IIRC started because of a mistake in a famous book on the horse decades ago. Anyone who knows the basics of MOW knows there is no way it could be MOW - they know his silks completely different, he always had his mane braided and he was never in a race with as many as 19 horses (saddle cloth). The horse actually is known, a filly named Step Lightly who won the Futurity MOW’s most famous year. But people keep perpetuating the error and some are taken in and buy the photos.

Anyway, no problem. Just good to let people know the truth!

[the OlLine Rebel]

Pity the poor postal workers.

[stevie_d_64]

I was following orders???

[stevie_d_64]

My heart bleeds purple Kool-Aid for her...

My grandmother, who lived to be 96, had way more class and conservative values than this woman could ever fill into a thimble...

Amazing how those two people could grow up in the same time, and be so diametrically opposite...

It boggles the mind...

Good thing some of my grandmother rubbed off on me...And what’s funny, she once told me that I taught her a few things as well...I guess I took that as a complement...She will be missed wayyyyyyyy more than Helen Thomas...