Helen Thomas - How did she miss Kerry's attacks on Bush

[Mass]

Helen Thomas is somebody I respect a lot. However, this column is driving me crazy as it shows how the MSM have succeeded in hiding Kerry's attacks even to the most honest reporters.

What can we do to avoid that?
http://www.thewmurchannel.com/helenthomas/5346681/detail.html

That may be asking too much of members of the Democratic Leadership Council, who often toss in their political lot with the Republicans. It's hard to distinguish some of them from the GOP when it comes to the Iraq war.

Several DLC members appear to have presidential ambitions, including Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton, of New York; John Kerry, of Massachusetts; and Evan Bayh of Indiana. It's apparently politically dangerous for them to stick their necks out and admit they were bamboozled by the Bush administration.

I already wrote this morning to Paul Waldman, telling him that for somebody who writes in MediaMatters.org, he was falling easily in the trap. (more politely, of course).
Where has she been these last months? In a secret location with Cheney?

[_dynamicdems]

1. Apparently Ms. Thomas was herself bamboozled...

by our corporate media. This is rather ironic since she, herself, is a member of the media.

I added a comment on the article with links to Senator Kerry's speech and I'm sending the same information to her via e-mail.

[Dr Ron]

2. Not the first time she has made such mistakes on Kerry

I just emailed her:

While I generally agree with the opinions expressed in your column, I feel you are misrepresenting John Kerry in your criticism of him and your characterization of Kerry as supporting the war. Correcting this misconception is particularly important now that the Bush Administration is using claims of Democratic support of the war to justify their actions.

While Kerry did vote for the IWR, he made it clear in his Senate floor statement that he voted yes only to give Bush the leverage to get the inspectors back in and pursue a diplomatic solution (as Bush claimed he would do) and that he would oppose Bush if he misused this authority to go to war unnecessarily. Kerry is on record multiple times advising Bush not to go to war, including in his Georgetown speech on January 23 prior to the war. Kerry ultimately called for regime change in the United States in protest when Bush did go to war.

Kerry has stated that Bush misused his authority and regrets his vote giving Bush this authority. While perhaps Kerry might be faulted for taking Bush at his word at the time of the IWR vote that he would seek a diplomatic solution first, it is erroneous to claim that John Kerry supported this war.

If you are interested I'd be happy to supply you with specific quotations and links (several of which have been noted in recent blog entries at The Democratic Daily).

[Noisy Democrat]

3. I posted to the Discussion thingee

I didn't address the question of whether JK "supported the war," as Ron did, but whether he's spoken out, etc. I thought she was saying Edwards was the only one. I wrote this:

I'm sorry to hear that Helen Thomas missed Senator John Kerry's amazing speech, which was given at Georgetown University on October 26th and shown by CSPAN about 4 times, as well as being e-mailed to the 5 million people on his mailing list. (You can read the text at http://www.johnkerry.com/pressroom/speeches/spc_2005_10_26.html ) Senator Kerry said very clearly that if he had known the full extent of the Bush Administration's duplicity, he would not have voted yes on the IWR (and that there would most likely not have been any IWR in the first place). He's reiterated this in numerous interviews on television and radio since then, as well as several speeches in the Senate. He particularly blasted the Bush Administration's misleading use of Iraq intelligence in a major Senate speech on Nov. 14th (video and text is available at his Senate website here: http://kerry.senate.gov/v3/cfm/home.cfm ). This is why President Bush recently singled Kerry out for criticism on Iraq, though he once again distorted Kerry's statements.

On October 26th, Senator Kerry put forth a plan to get us out of Iraq, with troop withdrawals linked to specific political benchmarks. He pointed out that the policy of 'stay as long as it takes' allows the Iraqis to keep us there for as long as they want, and that we must take a tougher line. On Nov. 10th, Sen. Kerry formally introduced his plan in the Senate as the Strategy for Success Act. Senator McCain has since made a point of attacking Kerry's plan (the battle is expected to continue when both appear on Hardball tonight).

I'm glad to see that John Edwards is also speaking out on Iraq and supporting essentially the same set of proposals. But I have to wonder where Helen Thomas has been, or which news sources she's been following, if she's laboring under the impression that Edwards has been alone either in saying that he would've voted differently or in blasting the Administration on the question of Iraq.

[ray of light]

4. Actually, Helen Thomas has an email address.

It would be most helpful for us to politely send her the evidence and also inform her of the media's complicity towards Sen. Kerry.

She actually responded to one of my emails a while ago. A very nice woman who I truly respect.

So If you want her email address I will pm it to you. I understand that there are scavenger programs to pick these things up!

[Mass]

5. The email address is at the end of the column.

[e-mail]

[ray of light]

8. Oh...very observant! (lol!)

To me that article sounded like she loved Edward's straight forward at the top of the page, "I was wrong".

[blm]

6. Yep -she needs to see the FACTS. Send her the Strategy for Success bill

.

[Noisy Democrat]

7. Good point

I didn't see the e-mail address, I just saw the discussion board. The e-mail address thing does sound nicer. Ulp.

[Dr Ron]

9. Email response from Helen

Resonse to my email posted above:



okay for future reference; but it's hard to play catch up; once the truth is garbled; the public doesn't understand nuance or should I say the gop made sure they misunderstood-helent


I responded by suggesting that getting the public to understand is part of her job.

[karynnj]

10. That was amazingly quick

the Or should I say the GOP made sure they misunderstood is sharp.