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At Tuesday’s White House press briefing, Press Secretary Robert Gibbs called on Helen Thomas, who in a very animated fashion, confronted him for refusing to assign responsibility in the raid, which left nine people dead.
Thomas: “The initial reaction to the flotilla massacre, deliberate massacre, an international crime, was pitiful.
What do you mean you regret something that should be so strongly condemned, and if any other nation in the world had done it, we would have been up in arms?
What is this sacrosanct ironclad relationship where a country that deliberately kills people and boycotts every aid.. and abet the boycott?”Gibbs: Well, Look I think the initial reaction regretted the loss of life as we tried and as we still continue to gather the relevant. ..
Thomas: Regret won’t bring them back.
Gibbs: Nothing can bring them back Helen, because I think if you could that wouldn’t be up for debate. We are.. we believe that a credible and transparent investigation has to look into the facts and we’re open to international participation in that investigation.
Thomas: Why did you think of that so late, why didn’t you initially condemn it?
Gibbs: Why didn’t we think of?
Thomas: Why didn’t you initially condemn it?
Gibbs: Again, I think the statements that we initially released speak directly to that.
What I find noteable is the parentenal role the US is assuming that we will have over an investigation. According to Craig Murray, a former British Ambassador, it may be up to Turkey.
Who put the US in charge of the world?
(h/t palestiniannote.com)
29 Comments
Imagine if half of our press had half of the COMMON decency of Helen Thomas.
And COURAGE.
I saw parts of Gibbs’ briefing today. The interaction with Press Secretaries has become a joke. Perhaps it always was a joke. Gibbs did nothing but duck questions or blather the whole time. It was telling though at one point, actually discussing the oil spill, where he talked about how “we” were going to cut off the riser. Apparently there really is no difference between the Administration and BP. No one called him on his unconscious identification with this Administration’s corporate cronies. But that is the thing about this Administration. He represents Israel. It represents BP. It does not represent us.
Helen is still the Grand Dame of the WH Press Corpse…!
Great job, skf…! rec’d…! ;-)
I don’t really mean to disagree about that, but I don’t think that it requires that much courage. I just think that our press corp are overwhelmingly spoiled little cowardly super babies.
I had a friend who applied for (and got) a job at a major US news outlet. The interviewer kept returning to the question of whether he had any relatives in the business. He didn’t, but shee couldn’t believe that he had accumulated such a good portfolio without connections. So the cowardice is probably in part explained by the gynormous amount of nepotism.
“Nothing will bring them back.” — Gibbs
Man I wish someone would have said, “That sure as hell doesn’t seem to keep us from occupying two sovereign countries to avenge the irreversible deaths of people who are just as dead today as they were on Sept. 11th.”
“It is for Turkey, not Israel, to carry out any inquiry or investigation into events and to initiate any prosecutions. Israel is obliged to hand over indicted personnel for prosecution” from the ‘up to Turkey’ link.
It’s why I wrote this diary and hope others do what I did.
Thanks for the diary, SKF; rec’d. What’s amazing is that NONE of the other WH press corps follow Helen’s lead or do it themselves; someone ought to go in and start ‘woofing’ and when asked why, just say they wanted to be like all the other poodles in the room.
And WTF is Gibbs ingesting when he says that this will NOT affect Obama’s (our governments) relationship with the muslim world? I mean, what planet does he think the Admin is on?
I hope Helen sees your diary. If so, tell her I suggested that to end these devoid-of-reason lunatic wars, Obama should hold town halls at Guantanamo and Bagram, all prisoners invited and free to speak (shoes may be left outside), open feed with no editing, and Helen Thomas to moderate.
I’m glad Helen is still doing Journalism, she is a wonderful example to show the stenographers that sucking up isn’t supposed to be part of the job description.
Erdogan is playing his hand very well. :)
As’ad Abukhalil (AngryArab) is in Lebanon this week, he has a blurb about seeing Turkish Ministry propaganda, say’s “I feel that Turkey is on a campaign to win Arab public opinion.”
That’s okay with me, there is such a vacuum that needs to be filled and counter the belligerent state. This goes to show that Israel is not really ready for nukes at all, they are like a mean 7 year old with a gun.
Make that with a nuke or two…! 8-(
In my Diary entry yesterday I took a similar stance to that of Helen Thomas, greatly angering many readers at FDL:
http://seminal.firedoglake.com/diary/52152
yup.. all the big boy toys and and none of the consequences for flouting international law.
Remember when they bombed the UN hawks nest on the lebanon border and killed 4 UN monitors? Then they said they were hezb’allah collaborators… ah, good times..
I think Helen’s criticism was much more narrowly focused; if you would have stopped at the second paragraph I’d agree.
It’s a show of contempt, implicitly.
Um, no. You stated that Obama actively endorsed the attack. You were asked to provide links backing your position, and instead provided a link having to do with Somali pirates. But nice try.
I do love Helen. Thanks for the video, skf.
I never said Obama endorsed the attack: I said he endorsed the massacre. Every Government on Earth except ours and Israel CONDEMNED the piracy and murder. Only Obama of all world leaders stands to support Israel in these atrocities. For a link, look on the front page of any legitimate newspaper: Obama continues to condone it by not condemning it.
Helen Thomas is a warrior, she is one of the few bright spots remaining in American journalism.
I posted the video plus a hat tip to you, shekissesfrogs.
Too bad we don’t get to decide whether Israel is ready for nukes or not. Dimona is a fact of life and will continue to be ignored while the drum beat for attacking Iran continues.
Thomas’s notion that Israel is receiving special treatment and that our response to these actions by any other country would be to get ‘up in arms’ is completely disingenuous. North Korea kills 46 people on a South Korean ship, unprovoked. Yet where is the outrage? Yes,HRC is dispatched to calm tensions, but are there protests around the world condemning North Korea and calling for its destruction? Of course not. Israel made a PR blunder in allowing their raid to go so awry, but the notion that Israel is somehow being treated with kid gloves is ludicrous. And the response of Hamas, a huge supporter of the flotilla, had made it clear how much they care about the Palestinians they govern http://www.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/meast/06/02/israel.palestinians.aid/” rel=”nofollow”>receiving aid.
No party is completely innocent in this debacle; not Israel, not the Palestinians, not Turkey, not anyone else.
Indeed. Though I would be more broad and say not only BP but “Corporate America.”
“…preserve, protect and defend the Corporations of the United States.”
The latest on the massacre from Vice President Joe Biden: “So what’s the big deal here?”
I’ve been thinking — maybe the mere fact that Gibbs called on Helen was an indication of admin. sympathy for what she would say that official channels and the msm steno pool would/could not. It seems that every time I hear about Helen Thomas, it’s because she was called on and asked a hard/real question that no one else does, and the fluff nonsense she gets back in answer. It would help to know if that is every time she is called on — rarely — or if she is called on often and occasionally makes the news. I just remember what a big thing it was for Obama to call on a blogger question. That in itself made news — news that Obama wanted to make.
“We the corporate persons of the United States of America…”
yeah, only a sociopath or a neocon would consider the murders of at least 9 humanitarians a “PR blunder”. The underlying humanitarian crisis not even questioned, just the fact that everyone knows about it is viewed as the problem.
This flotilla was a act of civil disobedience to bring attention to the inhumanity that Gazans live under; to provoke Israel to deliver the knee jerk response that Palestinians are subject to every single day, but nobody gives a damn.
Hillary Clinton is out twisting arms to sanction North Korea, and at the same time urging that countries tone down their criticism of Israel, and watering down UN statements. In the first place, the evidence that DPRK torpedoes that ship hasn’t been analyzed yet, the US was playing war games in the area with South Korea at the time. Need I mention that North Korea has some rich undeveloped oil fields.
Also, we don’t shield DPRK from any UN sanctions with a Vetos like we do with Israel, nor do we give them 3 billion in aid every year. Our government has created this monster and we, collectively as citizens are required to stand up to it or speak about it.
Not in my name.. ever hear that before?
How often does Helen rip into Gibbs for all the civilian lives lost in Iraq and Afghanistan at the hands of the US? And for you commenters, where is your indignation when the US kills in the name of our security? Israel is at war with a country which repeatedly calls for its death and total destruction and continues to attack it with missiles. I don’t see reports of missiles landing in New York, or Texas or anywhere else in the US. You are such hypocrites.
I can’t believe the audacity shown by Helen here. How can she call, what is clearly an act of self defense a ‘massacre’? Though at this point I can understand why the US is being somewhat unbiased in this crisis due to the delicate relations between the US and Israel and the relationship between Israel and the general Arab community. However, a condemnation of Israel at this time would not only by extreme, but most likely wrong and despicable. Her comments are obviously brought on by hate for Israel, not caring for the victims effected.