Well it wasnt a formal hanging. It was kind of subtle. I had covered h — Helen Thomas

"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."

"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."

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

"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? …"