Reply #14: Yes... If she weren't "retiring", then I wouldn't have started this thread...

[cascadiance]

I think we need to celebrate her history of questioning authority when it needed to be questioned.

She said some things emotionally that she apologized for later... Given the real opposite extreme of our accepting the horrendous remarks from Israeli leadership trying to turn their murderous acts of piracy as some sort of justifiable act to defend themselves from terrorism, its not hard to see how many of us may have said things in different places that we feel bad about later.

I feel bad about how some good Jewish friends of mine might interpret my comments too as being against their culture/religion, when I'm specifically against what this current government is doing of theirs, just like I've loved America but hated what Bush was doing earlier.

I felt the need to defend Turkish actions as well now, since I also have a lot of friends who are Turks, having lived in Turkey many years earlier, because as much as I've criticized what certain Turks have done in my efforts to help Sibel Edmonds, I'm also feeling the need to speak out for them now when they do the right thing.

Helen Thomas' emotions I think are why she's such a treasure. It's a shame that as a human being they can sometimes get the better of her judgment, but I still value them immensely.

If you put what Mike Malloy says each night on the radio under a microscope, you'd probably find far more that you feel he shouldn't have said too, though on a whole I value his emotions at other times when directed the right way. He just doesn't have the microscope on him or same job as Helen does with the same responsibilities.

Celebrate Helen Thomas the human being, and her many years of service!