The other event of note that has slipped past me was US President George Bush’s acceptance of a question from longtime White House ‘correspondent’ Helen Thomas. As her style of questioning would imply, she’s not a fan of the Bush regime. She began:

I’d like to ask you, Mr. President — your decision to invade Iraq has caused the deaths of thousands of Americans and Iraqis, (and the) 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, your Cabinet officers, former Cabinet officers, intelligence people and so forth — but what’s your real reason? You have said it wasn’t oil, the quest for oil. It hasn’t been Israel or anything else. What was it?

The answer she got, continuing while she attempted to clarify her question, didn’t go any way toward answering the question and instead, inexplicably, focused on Afghanistan. Her question was partisan and her answer was unclear. Though she was asking questions as a member of the press corps, she is in fact more a columnist, one with a great distain for George Bush and his international wars. She didn’t get a good answer.
Despite this her office received over one thousand roses from newfound fans as thankyou for her dogmatic persistence (The Hill.com: After grilling Bush, Helen Thomas gets thousands of flowers). According to The Hill’s article, Thomas shared the flowers with bureau colleagues but sent most of the bounty to wounded personnel at Walter Reed Army Hospital.

It could be seen that Bush was finally letting the least-likely-to-get-picked journalist have a chance at redeeming her credibility by asking a reasonable question. Perhaps he was trying to stop the drops in his polling numbers by reaching out to those who wouldn’t normally favor him. Bush’s approval ratings have been at record lows recently and he needs something to help revive them. He may, on the other hand, have chosen Thomas precisely because he knew her question would become the news of the day. While any other respectable reporter may have elicited a real response from him that may have caused controversy, Thomas was bound to create news herself. As television news anchors attacked her, (O’Reilly, others smear veteran journalist Helen Thomas over exchange with Bush), the news became not Bush’s feeble response but Thomas’s partisan position. The ‘liberal media’ as a whole was under attack and not just one elderly lady. By picking Thomas, Bush was able to discredit all journalists trying to find out really facts from an administration that has has remarkable success in information management, successfully putting a positive spin on events that don’t even make the news. Overall, the story has legs because it’s shows the current White House not as money grabbing and conservative hypocrites, but as manipulative and unclear. The right love it because it shows have repulsive the left really are, and the left love it because it shows that the right understand just how manipulative they can be, and seem to get away with it.

AP: President Bush’s Q & A with Helen Thomas
Helen Thomas: Bush takes potshots at messenger
Harpers.com: Give ‘em Helen [January 2003 exchange between White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer and Helen Thomas]
NewsHounds: Special Report Attacks Helen Thomas
MediaMatters: O’Reilly, others smear veteran journalist Helen Thomas over exchange with Bush
SF Chronicle: Bush Tangles with Helen Thomas
National Ledger: President Bush Uses Helen Thomas to Embarrass National Press
Baltimore Sun: News Whiteout

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