Homocon

Helen "I was a liberal the day I was born, and I will be until the day I die" Thomas famously quoted in 1993, to unanimous conservative derision, "A liberal bias? I don't know what a liberal bias is," yet when questioned regarding her thoughts of Condoleeza Rice, as well as the 2004 Presidential election, she screeched: "I tell you, the woman is a monster, a monster, a monster" and “My God, the man (Bush) is a fascist – a fascist, I tell you.”

Nope. No bias there.

Michelle Malkin describes Thomas as a "crusty ex-journalist-turned-White House heckler," Joseph Farah calls her "a wretch" and "a tired old battle-axe," and while I cheered when Ann Coulter outed Thomas as "that old Arab", I think my favorite description of our sweet Helen as an, uh, "journalist" is from the blog all-encompassingly.com: "She scared me. She was old, unsightly, and had that “wicked witch of the west” voice, but mostly i was afraid because I realized America (me included) was seeing its news through the biased, piss-colored lenses of Helen Thomas’ glasses . . . she was a bitter Michael Moore wanna-be carelessly spewing half-truths."

In the Clinton administration, Thomas held front and center position in the White House Press briefings in deference to her decades as a media scribbler, and arguably the high point of her self-regard was her cameo in the fatuous Hollywood political fantasy, 'Dave', where an Average Schmoe gets to be President, and wow, is he ever terrific at it, you know, cuz he cares about kids, and schools and jobs. Not like a *real* politician . . . not like you know who! Helen's shining silver-screen moment, staged during a fictional feel-good White House Press Conference, was, unfortunately for all of us in the audience, a close-up of her sagging, heavily made-up face punctuated with two beady Arafat eyes and a poisonous snarl gashed beneath the Yucca Mountain of her nose. I nearly tossed my bathtub sized popcorn into the air and screamed. What the hell was I watching -- a George A. Romero movie? Aeeiii!

But Thomas' powers have waned in recent years -- she's no longer called on first during White House briefings (thank you, Ari), and in fact sits in the back row, often ignored. She blew the wad of her remaining press cachet by defending Dan Rather when it was obvious that Rather and Company were cynical media hounds on the scent of a non-existent story, and even Slate complained of Thomas: "She ends up taking the air out of the room for intelligent criticism of the president and helps make the press corps look like a Saturday Night Live skit." Her graceless denouement (or is that forced retirement) into the Op Ed pasture finally allowed her the liberty to shed the chafing veneer of media impartiality to flaunt her true colors, and that's waaaay more of a close-up than any sane person could have ever prepared himself for.

So c'mon, Cheney -- how about it. 2008? You? Me? A Voting booth? Cuz the only sound I want to hear coming out of Helen Thomas' mouth after the next election is the howling recognition that the world has changed so far beyond her calcified ideologies that there's nothing left for her to do but keep good on her promise.