Doubting Thomas

Fox News contributor Charles Krauthammer - Jewish - opined Monday night on Bret Baier's 'Special Report' that Helen Thomas should've stayed. (Photo, Helen before the Bush WH press room redesign.)

Washington Post's Dana Milbank (also Jewish) writes Helen deserved what she got, but . . .  "the White House press corps will be diminished without Helen front and center, and not only because she was in that job before the current president was born. She brought a ferocity to her questioning that has eluded too many in subsequent generations. At a time when others were getting cozy with sources, her crabby, unrelenting hostility was refreshing. . . .  Now that Helen is gone, there's more need than ever for others in the briefing room to share her opinion -- specifically, the opinion that anybody standing on that podium should be regarded with skepticism.

Howard Kurtz, Wash Post media maven, CNN 'Reliable Sources' host - and also Jewish - quotes Jewish National Review's Jonah Goldberg: "She's always said crazy stuff. One reason she gets a pass is that there's an entrenched system of deference to seniority in the White House press corps. . . . This newfound horror and dismay that people are expressing about Helen Thomas are beyond a day late and a dollar short."

In Tuesday's NYT former CNN WH correspondent Charles Bierbauer recalls this 1993 exchange with Helen: ‘How long are you going to stay?’ And she said, ‘Until they take me out feet first.’ ”

Helen is so radioactive the WH canceled an East Room 90th birthday party for the legendary columnist.

"She walked in where angels feared to tread. She had guts, she asked the questions that should have been asked, and she asked questions for people who had no voice."  Helen Thomas on the journalistic nemesis of presidents from FDR to the Bushes, Sarah McLendon, who died in 2003 at 92 after a 50-year WH press career.