Burying the Lede

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Helen Thomas, the Rondo Hatton of the Washington press corps, has died at the age of 92. One of the first women in the Washington press corps covering politics, she harassed every president from Eisenhower to Obama for United Press International, moving to Hearst Newspapers after the Moonies took over UPI, before the Lebanon-born journalist’s comments about Israel forced her retirement. Thomas was the first woman to be elected as president of the White House Correspondents Association, the first elected to the Gridiron Club, an ink-stained sausage fest for 90 years, and the only one to accompany President Nixon to China. When Fidel Castro commented on the difference between democracy in Cuba and democracy in the United States, he said "I don't have to answer questions from Helen Thomas." As the dean of the White House press corps, for decades she held a first-row seat, asked the first question at presidential press conferences, then ended them with her signature “Thank You, Mr. President,” a scene she duplicated in Dave. She was less charitable to other men named Klein years later, asserting that Jews should “get the hell out of Palestine” and go back where they belonged, perhaps Germany or Poland. In becoming the first member of the media to question the United States’ one-sided approach to the two-state solution, Thomas became a pariah, drawing wide-spread condemnation and nary a moment of reflection.