Toon "How on Earth could her profession defend her?"

http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/06/07/washington/index.html

Our hard-core, adversarial press corps.

UPDATE: As for the Helen Thomas condemnation fest and subsequent resignation today, the central issue -- as both my Salon colleague Gabriel Winant and The American Prospect's Adam Serwer adeptly document -- is not the perception that she's guilty of bigotry, but the wrong kind of bigotry. Anyone who doubts that should compare the cheap, easy and self-righteous outrage orgy against the powerless, 89-year-old columnist to the total non-reaction in the face of the incessant and ongoing anti-Arab bigotry of The New Republic's Marty Peretz, or to the demands of then-House Majority Leader Dick Armey that the Palestinians leave the West Bank and go back to where they came from, and similar statements from Mike Huckabee (still gainfully employed at Fox News).

That's because, as I wrote the last time Peretz had one of his vicious anti-Arab rants, severe punishment is meted out to those who engage in the wrong kind of prejudice while those who spout the right kind do so with total impunity. That, and the fact that there are consequences for the actions only of the powerless in Washington, but never the powerful. Then again, look at the bright side: with Thomas banished, White House press briefings and presidential news conferences will be much friendlier and more harmonious with the amiable, star-struck Ed Henrys remaining in place.

Today, The Atlantic's Marc Ambinder, who often passes along White House thinking under the cover of anonymity, confesses that he, too, attended the water party, and also posted a short video he took of Rahm Emanuel frolicking with a squirt gun along with party participants Wolf Blitzer (the former AIPAC official and current CNN anchor) and The New York Times' David Sanger (who faithfully regurgitates every administration fear-mongering claim regarding the Iranian nuclear program):



About all of this, Ambinder writes:


Does an afternoon of leisure with senior administration officials violate journalistic ethics? To many, the self-evident answer is: "Absolutely." I have a different view, although perhaps it's a way to rationalize my own decision to attend the Bidens' first beach party for journalists. . . .


Yes, "perhaps." I personally don't think that these types of interactions "violate journalistic ethics" because I don't think such a thing exists for them. Rather, all of this just helpfully reveals what our nation's leading "journalists" really are: desperate worshipers of political power who are far more eager to be part of it and to serve it than to act as adversarial checks against it -- and who, in fact, are Royal Court Spokespeople regardless of which monarch is ruling. That's why they're invited into the heart of Versailles to frolic with the King's most trusted aides: it's their reward for loyal service as Court courtiers. Just marvel at the self-abasing joy in which Ed Henry wallows by virtue of getting to play water sports with Emanuel and the Bidens. He sounds like a gushing pre-adolescent who just met his favorite boy band idol and got his water gun signed. Digby asks, quite rhetorically: "do you think this sort of thing makes it easier or more difficult for journalists to maintain their independence?"