Take serial ranters John Podhoretz and Michelle Malkin! They are so outrageous that they even give name-calling a bad name. After smearing the Peace Movement, Hollywood's anti-war activists, Germany, Canada, Russia and France, they have turned their venom on Helen Thomas, age 82, the gutsy dean of the White House Press Corps.

Podhoretz hacks for Rupert Murdock's hawkish rag, the New York Post. To borrow a popular term, he is "embedded" deep inside the Sharonist Propaganda Machine. Many of his pro-Israel, Muslim-bashing, and warmongering spiels actually originate under a Jerusalem date line. While, Malkin recently arrived on the extreme Right's political ramparts. She is a syndicated columnist, whose pro-War Party, pro-police state gruntings regularly appear in the Moonie-owned Washington Times.

The Tel Aviv loving Podhoretz wrote (NY Post, 03/27/03), that Thomas belongs in an "old-age home." He's mad at her for comparing his beloved Israel "to Nazi Germany." He labeled her an "ancient White House pseudo-reporter." He also accused her of using her "White House press pass as a disgraceful opportunity to slander American officials and the nation of Israel on a daily basis." Podhoretz, an arch apologist for Israeli wrongdoing, does deserve credit for not trying to hide his strong bias on behalf of Sharonism. He wears it openly. Every time I see his mug, I envision the words printed on it, in bold type, "Israel First."

Malkin, on the other had, is furious at Thomas for asking questions, at White House briefings, about the conditions of confinement for the Muslim prisoners being held at Guantanamo Bay. In a March 28th piece, Malkin railed, "Shame, shame, shame on Helen Thomas. Thomas did not ask if the five Americans in captivity, in Iraq, had been tortured or raped. She did not wonder whether the dead soldiers had been wantonly executed in public by Saddam's thugs, who ambushed our men and women in Nasiriyah. No, the question on Hellfire Helen Thomas's mind was: What about the poor detainees at Guantanamo Bay?"

Thomas was first put on the duo's hit list when she let loose, (01/18/03), a broadside at George Bush's presidency. She said, "This is the worst president ever. He's the worst president in all of American history." She was appearing at a gathering, in Los Angeles, of the Society of Professional Journalists, when she made her remark. What made Thomas's candor so cutting is the fact that she has known eight U.S. president going back to John Fitzgerald Kennedy, in 1961. And, when she talks about the White House, she clearly knows what she's talking about.

In a speech, (11/05/02), Thomas said, "I have never covered a president who actually wanted to go to war. Bush's policy of pre-emptive war is immoral - such a policy would legitimize Pearl Harbor. It's as if they learned none of the lessons of Vietnam. Where is the outrage? Where is the Congress? They're supine! Great presidents have great goals for mankind. Bush has held only six press conferences, the only forum in our society where a president can be questioned. I'm on the phone every day, asking will he hold another one? The international world is wondering what has happened to America's great heart and soul."

In fact, it was the Moonie flagship, the Washington Times, who in an editorial, (02/01/03,) led the attack on Thomas. It put her in the "Knave" category for having dared to give her professional opinion on Bush's presidency. It said, "She had stooped to an elementary-school attack without even a sophomoric justification behind it. Not that Ms. Thomas appears to care about objectivity anymore. Last June, she told a reporter for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, 'I am a liberal. I wouldn't be anything else. Why should I be?' For one of the best demonstrations of some of the worst bias in the business, we can only say, Thank you, Ms. Thomas."

Thomas is a trailblazer in the political news business. She is a native of Winchester, Kentucky, and the author of three books, and she has also written radio news, while covering the FBI and Capitol Hill. She has been on the White House beat for over four decades, mostly with UPI, and more recently as a syndicated columnist for the Hearst Newspapers.

In her July 3, 2002 column, she wrote prophetically that, "The imperial presidency had arrived." She expressed her deep concerns about the loss of civil liberties under the Bush-Cheney gang, referring to the stealth-like passage of the USA Patriot Act, and how 2,400 detainees were being held "indefinitely by U.S. authorities." She also asked: "What right does Bush have to tell Yasser Arafat that he has to go or tell the Palestinians they cannot vote for Arafat in the coming elections? Bush's speech could have been written by Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon."

At a White House press conference on January 6, 2003, Thomas asked Bush's mouthpiece, Ari Fleischer, "Why does the president want to drop bombs on innocent Iraqis?" His answer: "The American policy remains a policy of regime change." Thomas responded, "That's a decision for them to make, isn't it? It's their country." Fleischer wiggled, "Helen, if you think that the people of Iraq are in a position to dictate who their dictator is, I don't think that has been what history has shown."

Thomas' rebuttal cut to the chase, "I think many countries don't have.... people don't have the decision.... including us!"

William Hughes is a Baltimore attorney and the author of "Andrew Jackson vs. New World Order" (Authors Choice Press), which is available online.

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