chriscam@observer-reporter.com
The United States has lost its soul over the war in Iraq.
Once a country unified behind its World War II effort, today's media are complacent in their war coverage and have not challenged President Bush's reasons for invading Iraq.
So said syndicated columnist Helen Thomas to a group of students and faculty at Washington & Jefferson College Friday afternoon, who gave her two standing ovations.
Thomas, a White House correspondent since the Kennedy administration, was outspoken in her criticism of the war and the Bush administration. She called Congress "chicken" and said newscasters now take orders from Wall Street.
"We are killing people every day who have done nothing to us," she said of Iraqi citizens.
At one point she turned to the students and inquired why they were sitting there listening to her instead of taking to the streets to protest the war.
"I'm a total radical," she admitted earlier. She wore a silver peace symbol around her neck.
At 87, Thomas has no plans to retire. Although she sat diminutively in a wing chair, and at times had questions repeated because she is losing her hearing, there was nothing slight in her comments about the administration's policies in Iraq and torture of political prisoners.
She told her audience that neo-conservatives with the Project for a New American Century and pro-Israeli advisers planned the Iraqi war, and Bush went along with it.
After Vietnam, the Pentagon made sure Americans would no longer see graphic war images. Reporters, no longer employed by family-owned newspapers, now avoid tough questions.
"I just don't understand. They (the administration) lie so blatantly. My colleagues just go along. They have let my profession down," she said.
She contrasted today's situation with the civil rights movement and support for World War II.
"We have disappointed the world. We have lost our halo; we were on a pedestal. We represented the best of all mankind," she said.
A former UPI reporter, Thomas called Lyndon Johnson the best president in the last 50 years because he worked from a foundation that people in America should not go hungry, or be without housing or medical care. During his administration, he signed the Civil Rights and Voting Rights acts and provided federal aid for education.
"I think his contribution was tremendous," she said.
Despite the Internet, she hopes newspapers still exist well into the future.
"A newspaper engulfs you," she said. "You read things you never planned to."
Thomas' most optimistic words were for journalism, which she called the "greatest profession in the world."
"What other profession gives you the impetus to keep learning?" she asked.