Helen Thomas Quotes

18 Sourced Quotes

You don't spread democracy through the barrel of a gun.

Helen Thomas
All presidents rail against the press. It goes with the turf.

Helen Thomas
This is the worst president ever. He is the worst president in all of American history.

Helen Thomas
It's the arrogance of power. "We're in charge. It's our White House. What the hell are you doing here?" Basically toward the Press. "How dare you question anything we do?" They don't understand that the presidential news conference is the only forum in our society where a president can be questioned. If he's not questioned, he can rule by edict; by government order. He can be a monarch. He can be a dictator, and who is to find out? No. He should be questioned and he should always be able to willingly reply and answer to all questions because these aren't our questions. They're the people's questions.

Helen Thomas
I don't speechify. I know the shortest distance between two points is a straight line. And that's what I ask. But they get mad at the straight line. I just want to ask a tough question.

Helen Thomas
I deeply regret my comments I made last week regarding the Israelis and the Palestinians. They do not reflect my heart-felt belief that peace will come to the Middle East only when all parties recognize the need for mutual respect and tolerance. May that day come soon.

Helen Thomas
Both Blair and Bush have been found lacking in their credibility. Usually by this time a government would have fallen. I covered two presidents, LBJ and Nixon, who could no longer convince, persuade, or govern, once people had decided they had no credibility, but we seem to be more tolerant now of what I think we should not tolerate.

Helen Thomas
I can call a president of the United States anything in the book but I can't touch Israel, which has Jewish-only roads in the West Bank. No American would tolerate that — white-only roads… We are owned by the propagandists against the Arabs. We are owned by propagandists against the Arabs. There's no question about that. Congress, the White House, and Hollywood, Wall Street, are owned by the Zionists. No question in my opinion. They put their money where their mouth is…We're being pushed into a wrong direction in every way.

Helen Thomas
We've got to break through the wall of secrecy. It's America's fate.

Helen Thomas
At the earlier briefing, Ari, you said that the President deplored the taking of innocent lives. Does that apply to all innocent lives in the world? And I have a follow-up... My follow-up is, why does he want to drop bombs on innocent Iraqis? …

Helen Thomas
We in the press have a special role since there is no other institution in our society that can hold the President accountable. I do believe that our democracy can endure and prevail only if the American people are informed.

Helen Thomas
The White House used to belong to the American people. At least that's what I learned from history books and from covering every president starting with John F. Kennedy. But now the 201-year-old Executive Mansion belongs only to a select, elitist group of people, including top government officials, members of Congress and the press corps. They and some others, all of whom are screened in advance, are welcome. But most people are not — not anymore.

Helen Thomas
Every President hates the Press. Every president thinks that all information that comes to the White House is their private preserve after they all promise an open administration on the campaign trail, but some are even more secretive than others. Some want to lock down everything.

Helen Thomas
... it took a lot of chutzpah on the part of a lot of newspaper women who came here in the twenties, thirties, forties, and fifties to break down the barriers against women reporters. And we couldn't even become members of the National Press Corps until 1971 — that's pretty late in the game. We got the vote, which we should've been born with, in 1920. Everything we've had to struggle for — it's ridiculous.

Helen Thomas
We began to see the renovation of our offices as a subtle part of the Nixon war against the press.

Helen Thomas
I'm a liberal, I was born a liberal, and I will be a liberal till the day I die.

Helen Thomas
We were never hyphenated as Arab-Americans. We were American, and I have always rejected the hyphen and I believe all assimilated immigrants should not be designated ethnically. Or separated, of course, by race, or creed either. These are trends that ever try to divide us as a people.

Helen Thomas
Helen Thomas I think American policy is pro‐Israel. If you take a vote in Congress, maybe you might get five people vote against any further aid to Israel or to continue its occupation. But that's about it. They control— They have vast power. Paul Jay Who's they? Helen Thomas The Zionists.

Helen Thomas