PART 2 ADDED: Credibility: Helen Thomas on her question for Obama, & media and political integrity

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Part 2 added below the fold March 28, 2:50 PM PST

In part one of his interview with Helen Thomas, longest-serving member of the White House Press Corps, The Real New Network’s Paul Jay asks her about her first question for President Obama.

The question, asking President Obama to name all the countries in the Middle-East that have nuclear weapons, was avoided by the President, who claimed to not want to “speculate”.

Thomas claims that knowledge of Israeli nukes is very public in DC and Obama’s answer shows a lack of credibility. She explains the importance of this question for U.S. policy in the region.

Finally, she confides that she has not been called on by the President since that day, but that if she does, she will ask him whether or not he has found any more information about nukes in the Middle-East since their last encounter.



Real News Network – March 27, 2010

Here in part 2 of the interview Helen discusses with Jay the virtually total capitulation of US media to the Bush Administration and foreign policy establishment as they in almost complete lockstep became cheerleaders for war and manipulators and creators of public opinion rather than reporters, giving up any semblance of journalistic ethics.



Real News Network – March 28, 2010

40 comments

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    • Edger on March 27, 2010 at 15:49
      Author

    if everyone would just quit asking hard questions.

    Wouldn’t it?

    :-/

    • banger on March 27, 2010 at 15:57

    that most people don’t want to know the truth either in the personal or public realm. I still scratch my head on this one but it is something I observe every day. It is this propensity that smart politicians understand very well. People want to hear their “stories” and narratives backed up — that is critical. Rationalism is very, very rare despite people’s claims.

    We are really tilting at windmills aren’t we?

    • TMC on March 28, 2010 at 01:39

    she is the last of the true journalist/reporters. Obama is a coward.

  1. chance to testify. And why the f**k in our Democracy are not Paulson and Bernake subject to a full inquiry under oath about the so called financial armageddon? Probably for the same kinds of reasons that Oswald couldn’t ever be allowed to talk. It’s truly amazing, with a wink and a nod Bush just hands the keys off to Obama and quietly settles down in Texas.    

    • Mu on March 28, 2010 at 07:20

    .

     About 7 or 8 years ago I wrote an email to her and lo and behold she wrote a very kind one back to me.  That was a couple of servers ago . . . I have her reply email no more.  Alas.

    .

    • Edger on March 29, 2010 at 00:04
      Author

    added to the flip above.

    Apparently there will be a series of these interview segments produced by TRNN, and I’ll post them as they become available.

    She’s become, without changing anything she’s ever done, what I could describe as the nearly sole remaining foundation of journalistic integrity in US mainstream media, outside of the online news services like Truthout, The Public Record, Democracy Now, Marc Ash’s new Reader Supported News, and a few others…

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