My Novels

Tuesday, January 28, 2003

Been a busy, busy day! Ran errands in town, spent a lot of time at a used paperback bookstore (it's in a huge old southern mansion, with bookshelves in all the rooms to the high-ceilings -- a treasure to explore!), biking, housecleaning, etc. So this is only a brief entry.

I just read an article that is a MUST-READ for anyone interested in journalism and the presidency. Here's a link and excerpt:

Doubting Thomas offers her press veteran’s take on state of presidency



As veteran White House correspondent Helen Thomas signed my program Thursday evening at the Society of Professional Journalists’ annual awards banquet, I said, “First time I ever asked a reporter for an autograph.”

“Thank you, dear,” she said, patting my arm. “Don’t lose heart.”

Those are words that should be engraved at the bottom of every journalism degree. That’s because I’m not sure that any business can cause a heart to be lost or broken faster than this. And Thomas probably knows this better than anyone because she began reporting in 1943.

.....Odd how the world breathlessly awaits the Golden Globes while honors presented the people who watch the politicians or work for a cancer cure are as obscure as lice. In fact, there’s a joke about the Golden Globes and the foreign press that presents them. It’s said that on ceremony night you can’t find a waiter anywhere in town. Take this from someone who once sat at another banquet with the foreign press — a group composed of a dry cleaner from Pacoima, a large Eastern European woman in a turban and an Egyptian shoe salesman who spent the evening trying to cadge free drinks. Now that I think of it, they aren’t much different from domestic journalists.

......She seemed to have sympathy and affection for everyone but George W. Bush, a man who she said is rising on a wave of 9-11 fear — fear of looking unpatriotic, fear of asking questions, just fear. “We have,” she said, “lost our way.”

Thomas believes we have chosen to promote democracy with bombs instead of largess while Congress “defaults,” Democrats cower and a president controls all three branches of government in the name of corporations and the religious right.

As she signed my program, I joked, “You sound worried.”

“This is the worst president ever,” she said. “He is the worst president in all of American history.”

The woman who has known eight of them wasn’t joking.



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Do yourself a favor, go read the entire article.

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