Helen Thomas (and Friends)

Helen Thomas has been covering United States presidents since the Kennedy administration (1961). She always sits in the front row, and has an honored position among the White House press corps. During the latter days of the Bush administration she was usually passed over at press conferences (maybe because she called Bush "the worst President ever. He is the worst President in all of American history").

Maybe that's why Bill O'Reilly compared her to "the Wicked Witch of the East", and speculated that she would melt away if Obama had poured water on her.

Obama did call on her at his first "presser", and she threw him a trick question: Was he aware of any countries in the Middle East that have nuclear weapons? Well, of course, we all know the answer to that -- Israel. But Israel won't officially admit to this, nor will any sitting presidents. Obama is no babe-in-the-woods, so he dodged the question.

Which led to a couple of other posts I found on the Huffington Post website. (Huffpo comes at things generally from the left -- the liberal side of things.) We may take a closer look at some point at the site's founder, Arianna Huffington.

MJ Rosenberg, Director of Policy for the Israel Policy Forum, published a post title "Why Did Obama Diss Helen Thomas?" He finished his piece with the following:

So why did Obama refuse to answer? Simple. Because if he did, the media would have reported it as a gaffe. Reporters either know nothing about the Middle East or, for the most part, have adopted Israel's perspective.

Had Obama spoken the truth, the media would have made his "blunder" the story of the night.
He cannot afford that because, frankly, we have more important things to worry about, like rescuing the economy.

So I don't fault Obama. But I salute Helen Thomas. Next time she should ask how he felt about those pictures that came out of Gaza. As the father of those two precious girls, we all know how he felt. But it would help America in the eyes of the world if he'd just say it.

That struck me as peculiar, to say the least. If any of you were following the recent conflict in the Gaza strip, you'd know that the Israelis, ostensibly to protect themselves from rockets being fired into their territory by the terrorist organizastion Hamas, killed over a thousand Gazans (approximately half of them civilians. Hamas uses the tactic of firing from civilain areas: if you want to strike back at them, you risk killing innocent people. Hamas is counting on their enemies being more humane than they are -- or the publicity backlash that will come along with the pictures of dead children that will inevitably result).

Rosenberg (the name is certainly Jewish) provides the criticism that Hamas wants. So who ishe, and who is this "Israel Policy Forum"? Well, go see for yourselves. They are a pro-Israel group that wants to make peace with their Arab neighbors, using what is called "the two-state solution".

Now also on the Huffington post is a piece by John V. Santore, who identifies himself as an "Obama campaign organizer and former congressional speechwriter". Santore is not too happy with Obama's tap dance routine.

Tonight, President Obama demonstrated avoidance, not leadership, regarding this pivotal issue. He is far to[o] worldly not to have done so intentionally, which, while frustrating, also provides concerned citizens with a concrete goal: the task of driving him to greater candor -- and with it, better policy -- in the future.

In this Obama is like me driving down the highway on a snowy day: half the people think he's driving too fast, and the other half think he's driving too slow.