Why Helen Thomas was a ticking time bomb, and the rabbi who lit the fuse.(Howard Kurtz, WaPo)

[Ian David]

@HowardKurtz Why Helen Thomas was a ticking time bomb, and the rabbi who lit the fuse. http://bit.ly/csa4nC 8 minutes ago via web
http://twitter.com/HowardKurtz/status/15701018970

Helen Thomas never shied from piping up. In the end, that was the problem.
By Howard Kurtz
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, June 8, 2010

Helen Thomas ended a storied career at the White House dating from the Kennedy era on Monday, days after making inflammatory remarks on Israel to a rabbi with a video camera.

"Frankly, I was shocked," said Rabbi David Nesenoff, who was at the White House for a Jewish heritage celebration on May 27 and simply asked the Hearst Newspapers columnist, "Any comments on Israel?" Her response -- that Israeli Jews should "get the hell out of Palestine" and "go home" to Germany, Poland and America -- triggered a wave of denunciations that a narrowly worded apology did little to quell. "This was vile, a paradigm of hate talk," said Nesenoff, who was accompanied by his 17-year-old son and a friend. "She felt comfortable saying this in front of two boys with yarmulkes on."

While the 89-year-old Thomas is renowned as a trailblazer who aggressively questioned 10 presidents -- including President Obama, whom she pressed last month on Afghanistan -- her hostility toward Israel has been no secret within the Beltway. Though she gave up her correspondent's job a decade ago, she retained her front-row briefing-room seat, even as colleagues sometimes rolled their eyes at her obvious biases.

<snip>

"She's always said crazy stuff," said National Review Online columnist Jonah Goldberg. "One reason she gets a pass is that there's an entrenched system of deference to seniority in the White House press corps. . . . This newfound horror and dismay that people are expressing about Helen Thomas are beyond a day late and a dollar short."

More:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/06/07/AR2010060701493.html





And yet Pat Buchannan still has a job. Only Conservatives are allowed to hate Jews & keep their job.

Pat Buchanan: In His Own Words
On American Jews and the Pro-Israel Lobby

1999: "After World War II, Jewish influence over foreign policy became almost an obsession with American leaders."
- A Republic, Not an Empire. P. 336.

1999: "I know the power of the Israeli lobby and the other lobbies, but we need a foreign policy that puts our own country first."
- Meet the Press Interview. September 12, 1999.

1991: "Even if his veto of the (loan) guarantees is overridden, he will have won high marks for his courage, and exposed congress for what it has become, a Parliament of Whores incapable of standing up for U.S. national interests, if AIPAC is on the other end of the line."
- Syndicated column, December 18, 1991

1990: In an August 25,1990, column, Buchanan criticized commentators urging military intervention in Iraq, naming Abe Rosenthal, Richard Perle, Charles Krauthamer and Henry Kissinger. On August 29th, he wrote the following:
"’The civilized world must win this fight,’ the editors thunder. But, if it comes to war, it will not be the ‘civilized world’ humping up that bloody road to Baghdad; it will be American kids with names like McAllister, Murphy, Gonzales, and Leroy Brown."
- Washington Times, August 29, 1990

1990: "There are only two groups that are beating the drums for war in The Middle East – the Israeli Defense Ministry and its amen corner in the United States."
- The McLaughlin Group, Aug 26, 1990

More:
http://www.adl.org/special_reports/buchanan_own_words/print.asp

[marmar]

1. '"She's always said crazy stuff," said National Review Online columnist Jonah Goldberg.'

Jonah Goldberg accusing someone of saying "crazy stuff"? How much deeper in the rabbit hole can we sink?

[xchrom]

3. +1 for you and an unrec for the sentiment of the article. Nt

[Name removed]

2. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Nite Owl]

4. "...her obvious biases"

Yeah, god forbid a liberal should actually speak up.

[Ian David]

6. On most things non-Jew-related Helen was spot-on.

Unfortunately, she is already being used to smear all Liberals as Jew-hating bigots like herself.


And reading some of the posts in the I/P forum here won't help.

[CTyankee]

8. I'm very depressed about this. My granddaughters are Jewish.

I am not but I enthusiastically take part in their Jewish life. Our family is also very liberal.

What am I supposed to tell these kids about some liberals and Jews? One of my granddaughters will be having her bas mitzva next May so she is studying her lessons in preparation for it. What does this story mean for her? These girls are the next generation of American Jews and they are strong, progressively thinking kids.

Right now I am truly at a loss for words with what I am reading on DU...

[Ian David]

9. Liberal Jews believe in a peaceful, two-state solution with Arab and Jew living side-by-side.

In fact, the original Jewish re-settlers before Partition considered themselves to be Jewish Arabs.

If you want to see what it means to be a Liberal Jew in Israel, then rent the movie Exodus with Paul Newman. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0053804/

I mean, Paul Newman is IN the movie-- he won't rent it with you (unfortunately).

You might also want to rent The Silent Exodus http://www.pierrerehov.com/exodus.htm

[CTyankee]

10. Yes, I've seen Exodus and also read the book many years ago.

I'll try to get The Silent Exodus, but too depressed about this right now...

[liberation]

12. I think a lot of Zionists took this incident as a carte blanche to project their own bigotry.

This whole framing is disingenuous beyond belief. There are two sides to this issue, neither of which has the monopoly on the truth nor is 100% correct. What some of you are trying to frame with this whole "Israel = all Jews in the world" is trying to make one of the sides sacrosanct, and thus trying to pretend is some sort of self-evident axiomatic truth. When in reality it isn't. Because as I said, neither faction in this debate is beyond fault.

[DrDan]

5. Jonah Goldberg and his whacko mother - wouldn't take anything they have to say seriously

[Ian David]

7. I thake Howard Kurtz seriously, though. n/t

[4lbs]

11. To me, the statement that caused all the ruckus wasn't the "get out of Palestine" one, it was the

"go back home to Germany and Poland" one.

Had she simply said that the Israelis should stop the naval blockade, building those settlements in Palestinian territory, and driving out the Palestinians, I don't think anyone would have really raised that much of a ruckus, except for the Zionists. With that she would have had 95% of the country that agreed.

However that second statement. Many interpreted it as her saying, "Hey Jews, you know that place where millions of you were killed? Why don't you go back there?" That overshadowed the previous point completely.