28 June 2006
♥ an ode to helen thomas
I watched Helen Thomas on the Daily Show with Jon Stewart tonight. I've always admired her grit - she asks the kinds of questions at press conferences that she knows will earn her the cold shoulder - but when I really became interested in her as a journalist was on the eve of March 21, 2006, when Thomas stuck it to the man:
HELEN THOMAS: I'd like to ask you, Mr. President, your decision to invade Iraq has caused the deaths of thousands of Americans and Iraqis, wounds of Americans and Iraqis for a lifetime. Every reason given, publicly at least, has turned out not to be true. My question is, why did you really want to go to war? From the moment you stepped into the White House, from your Cabinet -- your Cabinet officers, intelligence people, and so forth -- what was your real reason? You have said it wasn't oil -- quest for oil, it hasn't been Israel, or anything else. What was it?
PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH: I think your premise, in all due respect to your question and to you as a lifelong journalist, is that, you know, I didn't want war. To assume I wanted war is just flat wrong, Helen, in all due respect --
THOMAS: Everything --
BUSH: Hold on for a second, please.
THOMAS: -- everything I've heard --
BUSH: Excuse me, excuse me. No president wants war. Everything you may have heard is that, but it's just simply not true. My attitude about the defense of this country changed on September the 11th. We -- when we got attacked, I vowed then and there to use every asset at my disposal to protect the American people. Our foreign policy changed on that day, Helen. You know, we used to think we were secure because of oceans and previous diplomacy, but we realized on September the 11th, 2001, that killers could destroy innocent life. And I'm never going to forget it. And I'm never going to forget the vow I made to the American people that we will do everything in our power to protect our people.
Part of that meant to make sure that we didn't allow people to provide safe haven to an enemy. And that's why I went into Iraq -- hold on for a second --
THOMAS: They didn't do anything to you or to our country.
BUSH: Look -- excuse me for a second, please. Excuse me for a second. They did. The Taliban provided safe haven for al-Qaeda. That's where al-Qaeda trained --
THOMAS: I'm talking about Iraq --
BUSH: Helen, excuse me. That's where -- Afghanistan provided safe haven for al-Qaeda. That's where they trained. That's where they plotted. That's where they planned the attacks that killed thousands of innocent Americans.
I also saw a threat in Iraq. I was hoping to solve this problem diplomatically. That's why I went to the Security Council; that's why it was important to pass 1441, which was unanimously passed. And the world said, ‘Disarm, disclose, or face serious consequences’ --
THOMAS: -- go to war --
BUSH: -- and therefore, we worked with the world, we worked to make sure that Saddam Hussein heard the message of the world. And when he chose to deny inspectors, when he chose not to disclose, then I had the difficult decision to make to remove him. And we did, and the world is safer for it.
Transcript courtesy of DemocracyNow.org
I guess my point here isn't that George Bush is an imbecile. We already know he's hardly literate enough to survive a press conference. We already know he's unfit to be the leader of the free world - he wasn't even elected! - and that he's made some of the costliest, most irresponsible decisions in the history of the United States, and we know that the competition in that area is pretty stiff.
My point here is that this is what journalism is about to me. It's about asking the questions that no one else is willing to. It's about writing - or saying - what you believe, no matter who disagrees with you. It's about not waiting in the shadows while you watch our civil liberties be squandered away; it's about making some noise when your phones are being tapped and your bank accounts are being watched.
We need a few more voters to stop sending text messages to American Idol and start hitting the polls to vote for something that really matters.
We need a few more grassroots campaigns.
We need a few more marches and rallies.
We need a few more responsible journalists.
Let's take our country back.
6/28/2006
