Helen Thomas Should Not Be Fired

I did not realize that it would become such a huge deal.

Friday morning I received an email from a friend, Rabbi David Nessenoff which provided my first look at the video of the now famous explosive interview with Helen Thomas. David had sent the video to a friend at a newspaper who didn’t think it was a big story. My response to David was, give me a few hours and the video would become viral, and given some luck the video would have a half of million views before the end of the weekend (there were a million).

I quickly posted it on my site The Lid, wrote it up for Big Journalism, gave it to Scott Baker who posted it on Breitbart TV , and sent out tweets and emails to most of the large sites. Before I left on a five hour car ride to my brother's house for the weekend the video was posted on the big sites on the net. By the end of the day it was on radio and TV and the calls Thomas' head were all over the place.

Strangely, though I think that Ms Thomas’ comments were horrible and very anti-Semitic I do not necessarily agree that Ms. Thomas should be fired for her anti-Semitic rantings. Helen Thomas is merely a symptom of the problem, not the disease. Firing her would be like treating HIV with a band aid.

The mainstream media which is politically correct about every other ethnic group, feature anti-Semites all of the time without barely a peep about their hatred. I wonder if there would be the same calls for Thomas' head if she hadn't already been considered something of a joke by the press corps, someone who has stayed on long past their time.

Just examine the facts; Pat Buchanan who is a holocaust revisionist has a daily gig on MSNBC. Some of Buchanan’s anti-Semitic greatest hits include being, labeled a Jew hater by William F Buckley, blaming the Iraq war on Jews in the American Government, saying the Mossad was behind 9/11 and claiming there were too many Jews on the Supreme court.

By the way Buchanan said the same thing about the Senate three years ago

"If you want to know ethnicity and power in the United States Senate, 13 members of the Senate are Jewish folks who are from 2 percent of the population. That is where real power is at.." ("The McLaughlin Group," Feb. 2, 2007).

Nobody would dare take Buchanan off of MSNBC, or drop his column from Newsmax, Human Events, or World Net Daily, nor would they stop him from appearing as a guest on programs such as Sean Hannity.

Helen Thomas has a tiny voice compared to Pat Buchanan, yet it is Thomas' head being called for.

The Huffington Post quoted former Clinton adviser and Democratic Party big shot Lanny Davis as saying.

"[H]er statement that Jews in Israel should leave Israel and go back to Poland or Germany is an ancient and well-known anti-Semitic stereotype of the Alien Jew not belonging in the 'land of Israel' -- one that began 2,600 years ago with the first tragic and violent diaspora of the Jews at the hands of the Romans”

Why doesn't Davis complain about Al Sharpton? The Reverend has incited two anti-Semitic pogroms, one in Crown Heights the other in Harlem. Each of the Sharpton-incited riots, the Crown Heights pogrom and the one at Freddie's Fashion Mart in Harlem resulted in deaths. Sharpton has never apologized for either.

Ironically Sharpton recently appeared on Bill O' Reilly's show complaining that the Tea Party was inciting violence, but Mr. “No Spin Zone” did not have the guts to confront Sharpton about his incitement which lead to multiple deaths As an unrepentant murderer, Sharpton is allowed to speak at the Democratic Convention, is regular guest on Cable News programs like O' Reilly's and is an adviser to the President.

There are other Jew-haters in the Obama administration, yet the press ignores their hatred. One of the frequently used anti-Semitic stereotypes used across the world is American Jews control the government, especially foreign policy. A few years ago when Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir said as much there was a world-wide outcry, today if anyone makes a similar comment they go work for President Obama, Samantha Power, Chuck Hagel, and unofficial adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski, just a few of the Presidential confidantes who have made the charge. Yet the media ignores the President's nasty habit of picking advisers who are not just anti-Israel, but anti-Jewish.

There are so many more examples of anti-Semites in and out of Government, who appear on, or are covered regularly by the mainstream media. Rarely if ever is their vile hatred pointed out.

Helen Thomas is one of the smaller voices spewing that hatred. If she gets fired, so what, nothing changes. Bigger voices such Pat Buchanan will still be on Morning Joe, Al Sharpton will still be the media's favorite African American guest, and representatives of CAIR will still appear on Fox News every time there is a Muslim-related issue.

Those in the media do not really care about anti-Semitism; if they cared, there would have been staff changes, and people taken off the guest list long before Rabbi Nessenoff emailed me on Friday morning. Firing Helen Thomas is the equivalent of giving a lifetime sentence to the college freshman who gets caught selling a joint, when you have the head of the entire cartel served up to you on a silver platter. Ms. Thomas' comments were disgusting, and this is not the first time she has made anti-Semitic comments, but firing her while ignoring the "cartel leaders" such as Sharpton, Buchanan, and the other big haters in the public eye is meaningless.


UPDATE: Hearst has announced Veteran reporter Helen Thomas, who has covered the White House since the John F. Kennedy administration, is retiring immediately following her controversial statements about Israel.

It is sad that the controversy surrounding Thomas will now end and the media will go back to ignoring Anti-Semitism within its ranks