One answer ends a career of questions

Decades ago, she was a pioneer breaking down barriers for women in journalism. For years, she was in the front rank of the White House press corps posing blunt, often uncomfortable questions to the world’s most powerful leaders. But it was her own blunt answer to a question that abruptly ended her career.

Helen Thomas, the 89-year-olddean of the White House press corps, resigned as a syndicated columnist Monday amid controversy over anti- Israel comments she made to a filmmaker last month.

Video of the characteristically caustic Thomas telling Israeli Jews to “go home” to Europe quickly shot around the Web, prompting condemnations from Jewish groups, the White House and her colleagues.

After a trailblazing career that vaulted her to the height of political journalism, earned her a place in popular culture and a reserved seat in the White House press room, Thomas ended her career humbled and apologetic.

“I deeply regret my comments I made last week regarding the Israelis and the Palestinians,” she wrote on her website. “They do not reflect my heartfelt belief that peace will come to the Middle East only when all parties recognize the need for mutual respect and tolerance. May that day come soon.”

Thomas, a Lebanese American who grew up in Detroit, was well-known as a critic of Israel. As a Hearst News Service columnist she had described Israeli settlements as illegal “colonies,” and in a column last year was critical of U.S. support for a state “that oppresses a helpless people with its military power and daily humiliation.”

But the video and its apparently raw and unfiltered view drew widespread attention after it was posted on the site Rabbilive.com.

In it, Thomas was asked if she had any comments on Israel, and she responded, “Tell ‘em to get the hell out of Palestine.”

“Remember, these people are occupied and it’s their land. It’s not German, it’s not Poland’s,” she said. Asked where Jews should go, Thomas said, “Go home.”

Over the weekend, Thomas was dropped by the speaker’s bureau that represented her. A Washington-area high school canceled her scheduled graduation speech. On Monday, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs called the remarks “offensive and reprehensible.”

“I think she should and has apologized, because — obviously those remarks do not reflect certainly the opinion of I assume most of the people in here, and certainly not of the administration,” Gibbs said at a news briefing at which Thomas’ front and center seat was empty.

The White House Correspondents’ Assn., which Thomas helped open up to women and served as its first woman officer, issued a statement.

“We are saddened by her recent comments, but we commend her for a trailblazing career, and we wish her the best,” it read. The group planned to meet Thursday to discuss who will get Thomas’ coveted seat.

Thomas covered 10 presidents in her sprawling career, most of which was spent as a reporter for United Press International. She went to the White House to cover President John F. Kennedy at a time when female reporters were largely expected to write about the first lady’s social calendar, fashion and manners.

But Thomas and a cadre of female colleagues fought to open up the Washington’s media institutions to women. In 1971, when the National Press Club voted to admit women, Thomas was its first female member. She was the first female member of the prestigious Gridiron Club, a bastion of old-school Washington journalism, and the club’s first female president in 1993.

As the senior wire reporter in the White House press room, Thomas often was granted the first question at the briefing. And she often ended presidential news conferences with the traditional, “Thank you, Mr. President.”

Her style was direct, persistent and repetitive. She became a staple of the White House press room, an institutional mainstay. At news conferences, presidents called on her by name. To her delight, Boris Yeltsin did too.

Her questioning of President George W. Bush on the Iraq war made Thomas a thorn in the side of the administration and a hero of the antiwar left. She was introduced to a new generation through a cameo appearance in comedian Stephen Colbert’s searing critique of the press at the 2006 White House Correspondents’ Assn. Dinner. In the video of Colbert’s audition tape for the job of press secretary, the satirist tries to dodge Thomas’ questions but cannot shake her.

“She was always the first person there in the morning and she was the last person to leave at night. She felt the White House was her personal responsibility,” said Ron Cohen, who supervised Thomas as a UPI Washington bureau chief.

“It’s not the way you’d like to see a journalism legend end her career. Somebody as wonderful as Helen should have gone out with bands playing.”

Other colleagues described the news of Thomas’ retirement as bittersweet.

“She made a really bad remark. Look, she’s 90 years old. People just don’t have the same filters,” said Ellen Ratner, bureau chief of Talk News Radio. “I just think people have to give the woman a break. It does not excuse what she did, but you know how many of us in this business have said things that we regretted?”

That line of argument did not sway Rabbi David F. Nesenoff, the Long Island-based filmmaker who shot the video and interviewed Thomas at a White House celebration of Jewish Heritage Month.

“The Washington press corps and the president and her boss at Hearst have found her fit. I don’t go up to people and take their pulse before I ask question,” Nesenoff said. “I didn’t fire her and I didn’t hire her. I just asked her a question. And as she’s been doing for 60 years, I let people know what she answered.”

Kathleen.hennessey@latimes.com

jennifer.martinez@latimes.com