From a recent White House press conference:
Clearly Helen Thomas isn’t just covering the news; she’s making policy. Who knows? Maybe she’d be better than Bush.
What do you think? Should she retire as a reporter? Should she replace the President? Or both?
No, she’s asking pointed questions that Ari might not like. Heaven forbid!
:rolleyes:
She’s making policy?
I don’t even see a suggestion of policy in her questions. (That is what reporters do at press conferences: ask questions.)
I certainly see an aggressive tone to her questions. (Of course, up against Ari Fleischer, I would hope that all reporters are aggressive in attempting to get past his standard spins.)
On the other hand, her question is a valid one, even if the answer is one that we expect. The President has claimed that we will seek out terrorism wherever it may be found and eradicate it (while carefully stepping around the issue of whether the Chechens or the Russians are the actual terrorists in their little set-to, responding to Hussein’s treatment of the Kurd rebels differently than he responds to Turkish treatment of the same movement, and proposing no new efforts to disarm U.S. support for the factions of Northern Ireland).
I may agree with his actual (rather than his spoken) intentions, but it is a legitimate question to ask. When the President makes a declaration of an intent to use force on a worldwide scale–that may very well include waging war against one or more sovereign nations, what Constitutional powers grant him the right to make those commitments?
I may wind up agreeing with the current administration in all of their choices (aside from Ashcroft’s attempts to gut the Bill of Rights), but I see no reason to shift the focus from legitimate questions to the person who asks those questions.
December, I’d like you explain in precisely what way you see Thomas to be “making policy.”
December, I’d like to know the date of that press briefing, so I can look it up and read the rest of it.
I dont recall Thomas asking Boy Klintons spokesman about Boy Klinton dropping bombs on innocent civilians in order to cover up his lying under oath.
Yeah, I got a good memory.
Guin’s Rule #509: Never trust anyone who refers to Clinton with as Klinton.
Do you apply a similar rule to those who refer to Bush as “DuhBya” or such like?
It seemed to me like homas was trying to bait Fleischer into making a comment that would be controversial. She doesn’t seem to have succeded. Fleischer seems to have answered her without really saying anything interesting.
Okay, two things. First, are you a Terry Prachett fan? Just asking because I that think nicknaming William Jefferson Clinton “Boy Willie” would be fairly clever. (Boy Willie is a seventy year old member of Terry Prachett’s Silver Horde, a group of geriatric barbarians who roam the land vaguely engaging in activities that could be construed when viewed from a certain angle as pillaging. The rest of the traditional barbarian job is quite beyond the constitutions of the aged and somewhat frail horde.)
Secondly, why “Klinton”? I understand the derogatory value of Shrub, of Slick Willy, etc. But simple mis-spelling? I’m confused.
Who-Mooos. . .
“I think he was saying humus.”
I believe it has something to do with the mini series, “Amerika”, from the 1980s. To make a long story short, in Cyrillic, the K sound is only used with a K, not a C-which is the S sound in the alphabet. Thus, in Russian his name would be Klinton (actually K–toh-(no cyrillic l or i available…). At any rate, some right wingers think it’s cute to spell the names of people they think of as pinko bastards with a K if their names have a C, like Klinton, Kastro, etc etc. For those of us with a knowledge of Russian and cyrillic, it just looks extremely stupid.
Or to the Attorney General as “Asscrap”?
Can’t have it both ways, Guinistasia et al.
(*E#JKLR)(##KC)L#
(slamming head against the keyboard)
I give up.
In some parts of the south, this would be considered cannibalism. Personally, I never cared for the guy, especially once he grew that stupid beard.
In case it isn’t completely obvious, I have nothing, nothing, nothing meaningful to contribute to this discussion. I’m just very bored and stuck at work with nothing to do for another ten minutes. I apologize, but on the good side, it seems like there’s nothing much meaningful going on in this thread in any event.
Hey, I’d vote for her.