{"id":548,"date":"2007-07-28T13:25:00","date_gmt":"2007-07-28T19:25:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/?p=548"},"modified":"2007-07-28T13:25:00","modified_gmt":"2007-07-28T19:25:00","slug":"helen-thomas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/about\/2007\/07\/helen-thomas\/","title":{"rendered":"Helen Thomas"},"content":{"rendered":"

S<\/span>its at the front of the White House press briefings. She was forty when John F. Kennedy<\/span> won the presidency, and he was the first president she reported on. George W. Bush<\/span> probably won\u2019t be the last.<\/p>\n

For an 86 year old she\u2019s pretty active. Just the other day she spoke at a fundraiser for the Planned Parenthood of Greater Iowa group. Here\u2019s what she said:
<\/p>\n

\u201cIt seems the present conservative [U.S. Supreme] Court is targeting Roe v. Wade<\/span> and there\u2019s not much you can do about it unless Congress is willing to deal with these touchy subjects,\u201d she said. \u201cWithout pressure, I doubt they will.\u201d…<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople were saying during the Reagan administration that this was about the Supreme Court,\u201d she said. \u201cI wasn\u2019t sure at that time what they meant. But the truth is that the court is their one last resort to push their agenda. It is their one last resort to prevail.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cLet\u2019s return to the true ideals of the Bill of Rights,\u201d she said. \u201cThe issue is not the right to live. The issue is the kind of life. The issue is freedom without government or outside interference.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Anti-abortion campaigner Jill Stanek<\/a> picked up on this speech in her blog. Here\u2019s what she said: <\/p>\n

What goes around comes around, Helen. In that circle of life, you\u2019re a little too close to a time when you\u2019re going to be as helpless as those preborns you advocate killing…<\/p>\n

The first question elderly people seeking medical treatment should be asked is if they are pro-life or pro-choice. If they answer the latter, they should be moved to the back of the line.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

A touching tribute to one of journalism\u2019s octogenarian workers. As a card-carrying atheist and former choirboy, here\u2019s a few words from Corinthians<\/span>, Jill – \u201cand the greatest of these is love.\u201d<\/p>\n

Of course, like all texts it\u2019s open to interpretation. In this case I think Jill\u2019s interpreting the New Testament as meaning \u201cspew hate-filled invective.\u201d I don\u2019t care which side of the line you want to come down on regarding abortion, but peddling threats dressed up as commentary seems to me to rub the line right out.<\/p>\n

Still, God bless her. And if I can annoy people like Jill at Helen\u2019s age, God bless me too.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sits at the front of the White House press briefings. She was forty when John F. Kennedy won the presidency, and he was the first president she reported on. George W. Bush probably won\u2019t be the last. For an 86 year old she\u2019s pretty active. Just the other day she spoke at a fundraiser for […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-548","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-journalism"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/548","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=548"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/548\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=548"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=548"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=548"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}