Helen Thomas

"All presidents rail against the press. It goes with the turf."

"The White House used to belong to the American people. At least thats 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."

"Its the arrogance of power. "Were in charge. Its our White House. What the hell are you doing here?" Basically toward the Press. "How dare you question anything we do?" They dont understand that the presidential news conference is the only forum in our society where a president can be questioned. If hes 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 arent our questions. Theyre the peoples questions."

"If we could get them back to the 67 borders it certainly would be a triumph, but theyre not about to move anywhere. They keep taking and keep bulldozing homes on the West Bank. They have Jewish-only roads. They would never tolerate that here...My view is that you should not create another nation in somebody elses country, and the Palestinians were 85 percent in the majority, until they began the immigration for the Jews and for the Zionists because they had designated Jerusalem as their home, that God gave it to them. Well, I mean, thats— what God? Who? And so forth. Everything like that is just very debatable. Jews have been persecuted all over the world. Theres no question about that. Certainly the Nazis—. I mean, its too horrifying to think of what they did and the silence in the world when it was happening. At the same time, they arent the only ones who fought in World War II. I had— my brothers, two brothers, were there. All my relatives. Every American was involved. So it isnt a question of the Holocaust was a simple thing going on. The Russians lost 25 million people."

"Weve got to break through the wall of secrecy. Its Americas fate."

"[I]t 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."

"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."

"I can call a president of the United States anything in the book but I cant 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. Theres 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…Were being pushed into a wrong direction in every way."

"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."

"Well it wasnt a formal hanging. It was kind of subtle. I had covered him … his first press conference. He dropped down into the press room and started taking questions and everyone asked about the tax cut and I sort of — Ari Fleischer later told me I blindsided him because I said to him, "Mister President, why dont you respect the wall of separation between church and state?" Well, theres a video of him that is so funny. He jerked back as if he had been hit! I mean both barrels! And he said, "I do respect—" I said, "Well if you did, why would you have a religious office in the White House?" (Im exaggerating, but anyway) and "youre a secular official." And he said "I am secular." Well, anyway, I got a call from Ari after that. After that there was a formal news conference and I did ask him a Middle East question and it wasnt the question per se. They just dont like my boorishness."

"You dont spread democracy through the barrel of a gun."

"Im a liberal, I was born a liberal, and I will be a liberal till the day I die."