Cuts and runs from the Hugh Hewitt show
How the hell is Helen Thomas still drawing a paycheck?
Helen appeared briefly on Hugh Hewitt’s radio show yesterday (full transcript can be read at the RadioBlogger) to discuss why her and her buddies on the White House Press Corps have their knickers in a collective twist over not being alerted within seconds of Vice President Cheney’s hunting accident.
Hugh led with, “Again, I have been trying to figure out what was the harm in waiting 18 hours [to inform the press]. What was the harm?”. Helen had no better answer than to blather about how she and her buddies have a right to know and to be informed. The rest of the interview devolved fairly quickly, ending in a Liberal’s favorite method of defense: Cut and Run (she hung up on Hugh).
My favorite quote from their exchange though, which illustrates how insane and removed from reality Helen has fallen:
HH: I’m asking, Helen, if you think Saddam was good for Iraq?
HT: Of course not.
HH: Okay.
HT: But I don’t think it was right to go in and to kill thousands of people.
HH: Do you think he [Saddam] would have killed even more…
HT: No.
What!?!?! Do you really believe that Saddam — after notching murdered victim number 245,892 on his bed post — suddenly announced, “You know what? I think I’m done killing people now. Enough is enough. Now I will rest.”
Maybe Helen would like to spend a few days in a cell with Saddam? Interview him about how his hunger strike is going…maybe share a few Bush-bashing stories (I could see them spending hours trying to top each other on this topic), etc.
Look, I’m thrilled that Saddam Hussein is no longer in power but don’t believe that this didn’t come at a high cost in the lives of Iraqis. While 20 to 30 thousand Iraqis have died in causes directly related to military violence the Johns Hopkins study over a year ago estimated the toll to be over 100 thousand. This is not surprising if you consider that vital infrastructure still remains unrepaired nearly 3 years after the invasion.
Of course you’ll dismiss the the study as somehow flawed or politicized but the authors of the study used the same methodology that had received praise from the Bush Administration in Kosovo and Sudan.
So if the success of the war is judged by whether more Iraqis are alive through this course of action than if the status quo had continued- I’m afraid we are in the red currently.
Left by Preston on February 16th, 2006 at 1:05 pm