Helen has been in the Washington DC Press Corp for as long as I can remember. As a child, my parents watched a lot of news television so I would see her in the press gallery. I remember her vividly in press conferences asking questions of the president. She dates back to Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush Sr., Clinton, Bush 41 and even now, Obama who have held her company for presidential press matters. President Reagan seemed to always give her at least one question and now she is best known as the reporter who traditionally gets the first recognition from the president at these press conferences. She usually was wearing red (a tradition that dates back to Reagan's presidency) and was always seated in the front row.
In my research, I found she was born on August 4, 1920, the seventh of nine children in Winchester, KY to Lebanese immigrant parents. She grew up in Detroit and joined the UPI news agency in Washington in 1943. She was assigned to the White House in 1961 and became the UPI bureau chief there in 1974.
What is troubling is how she is IN the news today. When asked about any comments on Israel, she responded, "Tell them to get the hell out of Palestine." She went on to say, "Remember, these people are occupied and it's their land not German, it's not Poland."
The reporter then asked where should they go, what should they do. Helen responded, "Go Home!"
Reporter, "Where is the home?"
Helen, "Poland. German...." Interrupted by reporter, "So the Jews, you think Jews should go back to Germany?"
Helen, "Germany and America and everywhere else".
There are MANY things that are troubling about this, one is that the Jews have been home, living in Israel since biblical times. They ARE home! They re-established that home in 1948. Helen calls their home, Germany and Poland. Surely she knows what happened in Germany and Poland to Jews. Six Million Jews were killed at "home", in Germany and Poland.
My final comment is that if any Jew got up and said such hateful speech against a Muslim there would be death threats and who knows what. We have recently seen how the television show South Park succumbed to the death threats they were facing yet Christians and Jews have been mocked on this show repeatedly. There clearly is a bias in this nation. This is simply wrong.
June 7, 2010 - today Helen made a statement in the Hearst newspapers, where she works as a columnist that she is "retiring, effective immediately."