Helen Thomas
There are better ways we can transform this virulent hatred - by living our ideals, the Peace Corps, exchange students, teachers, exporting our music, poetry, blue jeans.Collection: Poetry
I was in Independence, Missouri when Johnson signed the Medicare bill, with Truman standing there. Truman had first proposed Medicare, but couldn't get it through.Collection: Independence
Everyone with a cell phone thinks they're a photographer. Everyone with a laptop thinks they're a journalist. But they have no training, and they have no idea of what we keep to in terms of standards, as in what's far out and what's reality. And they have no dedication to truth.Collection: Truth
We don't go into journalism to be popular. It is our job to seek the truth and put constant pressure on our leaders until we get answers.Collection: Truth
I respect the office of the presidency, but I never worship at the shrines of our public servants... The Washington press corps has the privilege of asking the president of the United States what he is doing and why.Collection: Respect
But when will our leaders learn - war is not the answer.Collection: War
War makes strange bedfellows.Collection: War
If we care about the children, the grandchildren, the future generations, we need to make sure that they do not become the cannon fodder of the future.
This is the worst President ever. He George W. Bush is the worst President in all of American history.
I think I'll work all my life. When you're having fun, why stop having fun?
I'm covering the worst president in American history.
You don't spread democracy with a barrel of a gun.
I don't think there are any rude questions.
We in the press have a special role since there is no other institution in our society that can hold the President accountable. I do believe that our democracy can endure and prevail only if the American people are informed.
I don't think a tough question is disrespectful.
President Bush has asserted the right to wiretap and eavesdrop on any American without a warrant in the name of fighting terrorism. He has asserted presidential power beyond stated constitutional rights, and there is no Republican gutsy enough to call his hand.
We got the vote, which we should've been born with, in 1920. Everything we've had to struggle for - it's ridiculous.
Every President hates the Press.
When you're in the news business, you always expect the unexpected.
You don't spread democracy through the barrel of a gun.
We won't really know what will happen until it happens.
All presidents rail against the press. It goes with the turf.
It's time for women to make their voices heard. Their silence on the subject of war and peace is deafening.
The White House used to belong to the American people. At least that's what I learned from history books and from covering every president starting with John F. Kennedy.
I covered two presidents, LBJ and Nixon, who could no longer convince, persuade, or govern, once people had decided they had no credibility, but we seem to be more tolerant now of what I think we should not tolerate.
Every president thinks that all information that comes to the White House is their private preserve after they all promise an open administration on the campaign trail, but some are more secretive than others. Some want to lock down everything.
I love my work, and I think that I was so lucky to pick a profession where it's a joy to go to work every day.
I've never covered the president in any way other than that he is ultimately responsible.
I censored myself for 50 years when I was a reporter. Now I wake up and ask myself, 'Who do I hate today?'
We are the only institution in our society that can question a president on a regular basis and make him accountable. Otherwise, he could be king.
It's like I say to young people who ask me about going into journalism: If you want to be loved, don't go into this business.
I wrote that President Bush is passing on to President-elect Obama two wars and an economic debacle. I call it a depression. And he is arming Israel against the Palestinians in every way in Gaza.
I have a background and an understanding of what's happened in the Middle East that a lot of people don't have, because there's been no interest.
When you speak of the press, of course, you have to speak of different segments of the press. Reporters, straight reporters, wire services, you stick to the facts; you don't create the story, per se. You cover what is happening.
I'm not anti-Jewish; I'm anti-Zionist.
I'm of Arab background.
People will never know how hard it is to get information, especially if it's locked up behind official doors where, if politicians had their way, they'd stamp 'top secret' on the color of the walls.
The presidency awed me, but presidents do not. Perhaps I have always expected too much of them, but I believe that when they reach the highest office in the land, they should live up to the greatest honor that can come to a person in American political life. Some have stood the test better than others.
We began to see the renovation of our offices as a subtle part of the Nixon war against the press.
I covered Kennedy when she was three years old and the darling daughter of President Kennedy who doted on her and whose mother did everything to protect her from the prying press.
Many voters think about the makeup of the Supreme Court when they are choosing a president. The justices deal not only with constitutional issues but also with social issues that were unknown to the founding fathers who wrote the Constitution more than 200 years ago.
Presidents hate the press. They hate me most of the time.
I think Obama is handling his image very well, but I think he lacks boldness.
I had a lot of fun bantering back and forth with Kennedy. But for ease and comfort, it would be Gerald Ford. He was a down-home type. I came from the Midwest and he came from the Midwest. He was nonaggressive and kindly.
I'm decrepit but I don't want to give up, and I love my work.
I think that presidents deserve to be questioned. Maybe irreverently, most of the time. Bring 'em down a size. You see a president, ask a question. You have one chance in the barrel. Don't blow it.
Truman fired the popular Gen. Douglas MacArthur because he disobeyed orders in the Korean War. Johnson knew that he had reached the endgame in Vietnam when Gen. William Westmoreland, the top commander in Vietnam, requested 240,000 more troops in 1968 for the prolonged war that also could not be won.
As a reporter having covered him for eight years in the White House, I am sure the press could have done a better job if we had known the real Ronald Reagan.
Vice President Dick Cheney reportedly has been disturbed over what he sees as the erosion of presidential powers since the Watergate scandal and has urged Bush to take a stronger stand against what Cheney sees as congressional intrusions into the executive branch.
Presidential power was overruled by the high bench in July 1974, when President Nixon was ordered to turn over some audio tapes of his White House conversations, including the 'smoking gun' tape of June 23, 1972, that revealing the Watergate cover up.