Sorry, but just one more observation about Sally Quinn's comments.

She made a point about excusing Helen Thomas' comments as being the product of old age, when the aged are prone to say inappropriate things.

Helen Thomas is 89.

In August, Quinn's husband Ben Bradlee will also be 89.

One other thing comes up, after a second listening to this segment, and after reading Sally Quinn's recent column in the Washington Post.

Sally Quinn, as she notes, was a recipient of the "Helen Thomas Award" from the "American News Women's Club." As was Quinn's husband, Ben Bradlee.

Sally Quinn made it amply clear that she was "not defending the remarks" that Helen Thomas made; but...

The "but" here is that Sally Quinn wished to rescue the "legacy" of Helen Thomas, even if the recent remarks of Helen Thomas are jettisoned. And one can understand Sally Quinn's motivation in that regard, inasmuch as she is a recipient of the Helen Thomas Award.

Wouldn't it have been nice -- wouldn't it have been appropriate journalism -- to know that Sally Quinn had been a Helen Thomas Award recipient when this interview had been broadcast?

Sally Quinn notes her Helen Thomas Award-winning status here:
http://newsweek.washingtonpost.com/onfaith/panelists/sally_quinn/2010/06/helen.html

halligator -

You're right. Helen Thomas has a legal right to free expression of an opinion. No matter how stupid, how offensive, how misinformed it might be, Helen Thomas has a right to her opinion.

But Helen Thomas only had a right to be the Hearst Newspaper chain's exalted White House columnist as long as Hearst was satisfied with her performance. Helen Thomas doesn't have a Constitutional right to be one of the handful of national reporters sitting in the front row of the White House briefing room.

And so, she resigned, right before Hearst had a chance to fire her and before the White House Correspondents' Association had a chance to expel her.

And now, Helen Thomas is free to espouse whatever hateful, ethnic-cleansing, senility-demented opinions she wishes to spout.

It is her right, under the law.

Helen Thomas has the right to her own opinion.Futhermore,she has a right to express that opinion.Said right is guaranteed by U.S.law.

Hmm, I don't buy Sally Quinn's argument that it is the fault of Hearst that Helen Thomas made the remarks she did. Maybe Thomas did have a "senior moment," but why blame Hearst? Shouldn't Thomas bear some responsibility for having declined to retire after so many years? And if Thomas has so many friends in the business (such as, um, Ms. Quinn), why didn't they gently hint to her that it may be time to step down, or speak to her family about it?

Something is not right in the reporting about Ms. Thomas' imbroglio. I have heard several times by now, that her remarks about Jews, Palestine and who should reside where; were "controversial". After consulting with several people and dictionaries I can confidently say that said term does not imply moral condemnation.
All blacks should return to Africa! Would this also be a controversial statement?

Before anyone "moderates" the several commenters here who are agreeing, substantively, with the sentiments that Helen Thomas has herself apologized for (we can all question the sincerity of her apology, but it is what it is), let me say this:
When I mentioned some of the far-left politcal websites where Helen Thomas' remarks were hailed as being true and legitimate, I should have included The Takeaway, and NPR.

And this is the crux of the matter. Helen Thomas truly did represent a segment of American politics. She represented the loony fringe left. That segment of people who adored Helen Thomas for saying that George W. Bush was the worst Presdient in the nation's history. Yes, Helen Thomas challenged every one of our last ten Presidents. She challenged Republicans from the far left. And she challenged Democrats from the even-farther-left.

I agree that it might be a bit unfair to judge the entire career of Helen Thomas based on one bad day when she was 89. That is why in judging Helen Thomas on many days, over many years, I would conclude in all sincerity that she was and is a crank.

It's obvious that there is no critical thinking allowed in the media. Heaven forbid anyone question the status quo! Or question why our leaders are so influenced by AIPAC.....it's true, America is Israel's [Comment redacted. Please make your point without profanity. Thanks - Eds.].....

Please leave the poor woman alone, she is old and tired and has served well. I do not understand why she has to be literaly "crucified" for a comment that I am sure a lot of people have thought before. Yes, she is a public figure, but she is HUMAN after all!

I was distressed by the interview with Sally Quinn, in which one doyenne of the entrenched Washington press corps was covering for the inexcusable statements of another.

If Sally Quinn's excuse for Helen Thomas boils down to something like "senile dementia," it is clearly an excuse that Helen Thomas has not utilized on her own behalf.

But I don't believe it, nor do I accept that excuse in any event. To read the comments pages on this story at a variety of far-left political websites (Salon.com, DemocraticUnderground.com, etc.), there is a very large part of that demographic that feels as though Helen Thomas was right, and was somehow speaking truth to power.

It is disingenuous for Sally Quinn and Lynn Sherr to attempt to decry Helen Thomas' comments as being beyond the pale, when there are so many people who claim to truly and explicitly support those remarks.

Helen Thomas got off so easy in this interview! In fact, the notion that Helen Thomas was an aging victim of Hearst, or that she should have been left alone in her dotage, is personally reprehensible, when one considers the recollections of James Rosen in his book, "The Strong Man." Jonah Goldberg of the National Review summarizes the story -- "Mitchell's wife Martha was a mentally unstable alcoholic who would call reporters to vent sad, paranoid, fact-free theories and diatribes. At first, many reporters were eager to hear her out, but over time it became obvious that Martha Mitchell was not well and it was cruel to exploit her. Obvious, that is, to nearly everyone but Helen Thomas who continued to milk Martha Mitchell for damning quotes and nonsense."

Helen Thomas wasn't a principled reporter. In her later years, she wasn't a reporter at all, but rather was an opinion columnist, who inexplicably occupied a front-row seat among White House news correspondents.

James Taranto of the Wall Street Journal's Best of the Web online column indelibly labeled her, "America's crazy old aunt in the attic."

Disagree with Helen Thomas, if you will, but don't suggest that she must be senile to say that zionists should get out of Palestine. As I recall, the "leaders" of the former Soviet Union were famous for questioning the sanity of anyone who disagreed with their policies. It was wrong there and then, and it's wrong here and now.

Apparently Helen Thomas is the only person not on the AIPAC payroll in Washington DC.
Nobody else dares to say anything negative about the Zionist / Terrorist country because if you do you are branded an anti-semite.
And AIPAC sure does pay our politicians a lot more money than the Palestinians do.

I listened to your conversation with Sally Quinn and responses about older people "losing their inhibitions and saying things that you never knew they felt". This is a good excuse but we all know that sometimes this is what people always felt but were able to keep quiet about. As a Jew the part that really bothered me about Helen's comments were that "Jews " go back to where they came from not Israelis. I had always applauded Ms. Thomas and her moxie but I guess she just couldn't hold in her true beliefs .