HELEN THOMAS: Democracy is the real winner

[babylonsister]

Democracy is the real winner

By HELEN THOMAS
HEARST NEWSPAPERS


WASHINGTON -- Democracy is the real winner in this week's presidential election, when American voters made history.

The mind-boggling surge that catapulted President-elect Barack Obama to the nation's top leadership is a shining victory of tolerance over racial prejudice.

It's been a long journey from the Civil War, the civil rights movement, courageous laws passed in the Lyndon B. Johnson era and the landmark Supreme Court rulings on civil liberties.

I watched Tuesday night's election returns with an African-American friend. When Obama's triumph flashed across the television screen, she said in a low voice, "I have a dream," echoing a line from one of Martin Luther King's memorable speeches. Another teary-eyed African American said: "I never thought I'd ever see this day."

Obama's campaign mantra of "change" resonated with millions of Americans, disenchanted with President Bush on all fronts, particularly the collapsing economy.

The election galvanized a remarkable outpouring of youthful voters who cast ballots for the first time and became involved in the campaigns and election process. After all, the future belongs to them.

The enthusiastic atmosphere on Election Day was so great it almost became a sin not to vote.

more...

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/opinion/386490_thomasonline06.html

[givemebackmycountry]

1. Let's face it...

We LOVE Helen here on DU.
GOD, I hope she is in the front row, and gets to ask the FIRST question, at the FIRST press conference for President Barack Obama.
And, we already know.
It's going to be a tough one!

[babylonsister]

2. I would love to see that, too, and our gracious next president would

be very obliging, I'm sure.

[az chela]

3. Helen,your still the bomb.

I have missed you.Hope your health is 100 % and that you cover the election as the top reporter

[Booster]

4. I'm sure Obama's staff reads DU, but, just in case they missed it,

I sent them a note that it would be cool for President Obama to walk Helen to the front row and let her ask the first question. I think that would be awesome and I know I would break down and cry. It would show Bush and his ilk what a real man does.

[NJPuggle]

5. Helen Thomas

... Press Secretary? :patriot:

[tavalon]

8. Nope, he's already picked that position and picked well

Helen is way past retirement age and I'm just thrilled that she's still around in the press corps.

[Morpheal]

6. Change Means Changing Who Gets Chosen

If President Elect Barack Obama is to really bring the change he promises to America, then he will also have to change the criteria as to who gets chosen for key posts in his administration.

What Mr. Obama needs is to break with historical trends. Barack Obama should not follow in the footsteps of his predecssors in choosing the already privileged, coming from sheltered lives, who have neither studied the realities (despite some having academic degrees) nor have they really lived the struggles faced by the majority of "we the people".

Instead he should choose those who know.

Imagine a nation where health is led by someone who knows how tough it is for the poor to get good care. Someone who knows what a profit motive does when it comes to placing a price on human life and quality of life. Housing led by someone who knows the slum and ghetto realities. Someone who knows how hard it is in much of America to get and keep a decent roof over a family's head. Someone who knows about the never ending conflict of landlords and tenants. Education by someone who knows how prejudiced, tainted and unprogressive education in America often is. Someone who has read and understands Thoreau. Someone who has taught underprivileged, poor, children in America. Someone who has educated in today's decaying urban inner city schools. Environment by someone who knows how short sighted much of modern commerce with Nature really is, and who knows not only the horrors hidden behind the hyperbole and propaganda of environmental responsibility, but who knows the hidden solutions that remain suppressed because it isn't competitive enough and it isn't good business, and it isn't cost effective enough. Someone who knows how to listen to the many oppressed scientists and engineers who have answers to offer but who have been silenced, like political prisoners in a totalitarian regime. Silenced by stigmatization. Silenced by lost funding. Silenced by threat.

We could go on mentionning every major department in the government that needs the appointment of new leadership. It is the principle that needs changing. Barack Obama, please choose men and women who are good, wise, and true. Break with the trend, and bring real change to America and the world that it endeavours to lead. In that way reassert that lagging leadership with what is right, not what is most expedient, popular, or easy to do. Traditional choices have always failed because they are inherently conservative and aimed at reducing or thwarting change. Traditional choices, methods of selection, were never meant to be catalysts of real change.

Barack Obama the risks you have already taken are larger than most men have ever endured, and in a world of international strife among various irrational and passionately fought for extremes, you continue to take an even greater risk. That already given fact allows you, Barack Obama, to choose differently. You are the first who has won the opportunity to take greater risks than any who came before you. Risks to faciliate positive change in America and the world.

Robert Morpheal


Anyone may reproduce, distribute, copy, publish this article in any form by any means and is in fact encouraged to do so.

[MasonJar]

7. Helen, thank you yet again for all the times you spoke truth to power

that was GWB. You are an important American and a first rate journalist. You will go down in the annals of journalism along with Murrow, Moyers and Cronkite.

[olegramps]

9. She called her colleagues "lap dogs."

The Washington Press Corps were effectively silenced by the Bush administration and it was only Helen Thomas who spoke out. In her book , "Watchdogs of Democracy? The Waning Washington Press Corps and How It Has Failed the Public", she said her colleagues were lap dogs rather than watchdogs. She was black balled by the administration for challenging administration while her colleagues reprinted the administration's press releases without a murmur of complaint.

The Fourth Estate failed the American people and continue to do so. The latest example of this was the failure of the major news outlets, except CNN's one time airing of a limited piece of the subject, to inform the American public of Sarah Palin's ties to the Alaska Independence Party and their founders abject hatred of the United States and their determination to secede from the Union. The claim that the major news sources are liberal is just another piece of bull crap that has been shoved down the throats of Americans.

[janet118]

10. I just love this woman

If the rest of the WH press corps had half her ability to smell crap and half her courage to tell us about it, Bush & Co. would have been exposed in real time as the thugs and liars they are.

Helen, you are the best.

:loveya: :loveya: :loveya: :loveya:

[Best_man23]

11. One of the few REAL journalists left

Helen will be as tough on Obama as she has been on every president she's covered.

[Iwillnevergiveup]

12. After the shabby treatment Helen endured

under BushCo, I'm so happy she lived to see a brighter day. What a grande dame. And yes, she deserves a special escort to the front row of the press room.