Liberal Lebonese-American gushpuppet and White House correspondent Helen Thomas writes:
[…] lawmakers are worried that Bush will play the ‘patriot card’ in the November elections to attack dissenters and opponents. The Democratic leaders have already rolled over. They have given him a blank check by passing the USA Patriot Act, which permits outrageous invasions of privacy, and by seconding Bush’s foreign policy with a weak ‘me too.’
Whatever happened to congressional oversight? I remember all too well the senators who gave President Lyndon B. Johnson a free hand to do whatever he believed was necessary in Southeast Asia.
To which Jeff Goldstein, critic of liberal Lebonese-American gushpuppet Helen Thomas, breezily replies: “No surprise there. You remember the Barbary Pirates, you old shrew. Now buzz off.”
Of Note: Tim Blair would add, “Helen Thomas, the only White House correspondent who is older than the White House.”
And were he still alive, Trout Fishing in America might reminisce: “I remember with particular amusement, people with three-cornered hats fishing in the dawn.”
[dredged, barehandedly, out of Gato’s rant bucket]
As a woman of non-youth, I take deep offense at your perpetuating misogynist, patriarchal stereotypes of the chrono-challenged members of my gender.
Btw, love the new look. Swank. Did Boneill’s hippy-taunts drive you to it?
In a sense, I suppose. Just wanted to chap his ass a bit—and confuse the serious folk he sends over here.
But I’ll switch back from time to time—whenever I’m feelin’ kinda daffy.
What in heaven’s name does Helen Thomas’s ethnic background have to do with the price of humus in Syria? By citing it you reveal more about yourself than you do about her. I wonder, are you suggesting that her Lebanese roots (Christian, no doubt, like Bushite John Sununu) are what make her antagonistic to the President, or that because she disagrees with him she must then have Arabic (albeit Christian) blood? Because here’s some news: you needn’t have Arab blood to differ with George W. Bush or to question his policies. Plenty of Jewish-Americans do. And African-Americans. And Irish-Americans. Anyone with half a brain, really. And if you can’t see past the cynicism of the very name of “The Patriotic Act”–a shrewd contrivance by which anyone opposing it must then be, by definition, unpatriotic–then I’d say old Helen has far better eyesight than you.
The Lebanese label was cited in the comments section of the link I took the story from. And besides, I liked the alliteration and thought “Lovely-American” would be misleading. What that says about me I don’t know. I’m sure it’s fraught with all sorts of meaning for you that wouldn’t even occur to me.
As for the weary whine that you’re being called unpatriotic for not agreeing with Bush…I’ve said no such thing, and I think it’s the canard most abused by those who like to feel persecuted in order that they may adopt the stance of brave dissenter in the war against civil liberties. In short, its disingenous and tiresome.
Helen Thomas frames her questions in the most contentious language imaginable. If I want to take her to task for it, I will. I’m sure my doing so doesn’t speak to your patriotism, if that’s what you’re worried about.
Feel better now?