Helen Thomas Retires
By Priyanka Roy Chowdhury, Gaea News NetworkTuesday, June 8, 2010
WASHINGTON (GaeaTimes.com)- On Monday the Hearst New Service announced in a statement that 89-year-old Ms Helen Thomas has retired from her position as a columnist. The retirement follows after the video-tape of the controversial remarks made by Helen Thomas to an Independent filmmaker spread over the internet and infuriated many imminent people. Ms. Helen Thomas has maintained that her retirement would become effective immediately.
Helen Thomas has many a times in the past spoken her mind out without caring the consequences. Many journalists who have covered the President have voiced that while one rule existed for common journalists another rule existed for Helen Thomas who had grilled around 10 Presidents of America during her tenure as a journalist. However it seems that her vociferous statement this time has caused her dearly. The present uproar occurred when on May 27, this year Rabbi David Nesenoff asked Helen Thomas to comment on Israel outside a White House Jewish heritage event. Helen Thomas went on to say that the Israelis should “get the hell out of Palestine”. When further asked about where the Israelis should go, she mentioned that they would go to “Poland, Germany… America and everywhere else”.
Although Helen Thomas issued a personal apology on her website after making the comment and said that she deeply regrets making such comments. She said that the remarks made by her do not reflect her “heart-felt belief that peace will come to the Middle East”. However, all these have not helped her situation in any way as Robert Gibbs who is the White House spokesman condemned her statement as “offensive and reprehensible”. Even her colleagues of the White House Press Corps issued a statement where they called the remarks made by Helen Thomas as “indefensible”.
