Helen Thomas Is My Kind 'Get Real' Reporter
Fri, October 2, 2009 
Obama Administration’s Press Secy Robert Gibbs
When I wrote “Media Needs to Help America ‘Get Real’ — a post from last week that hit the radar yesterday — I have something in mind like the exchange 89-year-old Helen Thomas had with Press Secretary Robert Gibbs yesterday afternoon.
Gibbs called on Thomas, in her front-dow-middle-seat, and Helen asked her perennial question: “Has the president given up on the public option?”
I report the remaining exchange via The Washington Post:
The press secretary laughed at this repetition of a common Thomas inquiry, but this questioner, who has covered every president since Kennedy, wasn’t about to be silenced. “I ask it day after day because it has great meaning in this country, and you never answer it,” she said.
“Well, I — I — I apparently don’t answer it to your satisfaction,” Gibbs stammered.
“That’s right,” Thomas snarled.
“I — I’ll — I’ll give you the same answer that I gave you unsatisfactorily for many of those other days,” Gibbs offered. “It’s what the president believes in —”
“Is he going to fight for it or not?” Thomas snapped.
“We’re going to work to get choice and competition into health-care reform” was Gibbs’s vague response.
Thomas took that as a no. “You’re not going to get it,” she advised.
“Then why do you keep asking me?” Gibbs inquired.
“Because I want your conscience to bother you,” Thomas replied. The room erupted; Gibbs reddened.
Actually, conscience isn’t the problem for Gibbs and his boss; it’s spine. Thomas’s question got at an Obama administration trait that is puzzling opponents and demoralizing supporters: Why isn’t the president more decisive and forceful? On many of the most pressing issues — the public option in health reform, troop levels in Afghanistan, sanctions against Iran — the administration has hewed to hemming and hawing.
It’s great the Washington Post prints the exchange, but I daresay that Helen Thomas is one of the few reporters out there with the backbone to ask key questions with this degree of vigilance.
The point of the media in a free society is NOT to give over the airwaves, letting politicians, pundits, activists, and other spokespeople say whatever they wish. Helen Thomas is 89 years old. Cronkite is dead. Who will take their places? Anne
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