For anyone who doubts that there is a double standard regarding racism in the U.S. media, read Marty Peretz's blog post (New Republic, 6/19/10) on the "crooked little emirate" of Dubai, in which he glibly comments that "Arabs are deft at disguising reality."

Peretz will certainly be able to continue to freely publish his anti-Arab screeds with little condemnation, yet Helen Thomas was pushed out of her job and rebuked by President Obama himself (AP, 6/8/10) and some pundits (FAIR blog, 6/14/10) for her comments telling Israelis to "get the hell out of Palestine" and to "go home" to Poland, Germany or the United States.  Thomas promptly apologized (FAIR blog, 6/9/10) and announced her retirement, but Peretz has written similar rants in the past regarding Arabs and Muslims that didn't raise many eyebrows.  Apparently, anti-Arab sentiment remains an acceptable part of the discourse on the Middle East.

Here's Peretz again, in language that was later scrubbed from the New Republic's website without comment (Salon, 3/6/10):

There were moments--long moments--during the Iraq War when I had my doubts. Even deep doubts. Frankly, I couldn’t quite imagine any venture requiring trust with Arabs turning out especially well. This is, you will say, my prejudice. But some prejudices are built on real facts, and history generally proves me right.  Go ahead, prove me wrong.

One more from Peretz (New Republic, 3/19/10):

Alas, in the Middle East, it’s mostly continuity and cruelty. This is a culture so unhinged by modernity that it clings to its crippled civilization. And who will tell me that the civilization of the Arabs, the civilization of Islam, is not crippled?

Where's the media outrage on this one?

(H/T Matt Yglesias.)

People have interpreted the Helen Thomas controversy an number of ways. Some were disappointed in her remarks,  since they are overshadowing the fact that for years she's asked questions about issues that the rest of the press corps didn't care about.

Others have suggested that Thomas' questions about war and the killings of civilians were a warning sign,  and that other journalists should have stepped in to stop her sooner.

That's the view of the Washington Post's Howard Kurtz, who led his piece today (6/14/10) with this:

There she goes again.

That was the eye-rolling reaction in the White House pressroom when Helen Thomas would go off on one of her rants about the Middle East.

Kurtz explained that Thomas was protected by her eye-rolling colleagues:

It's hard to avoid the conclusion that she was a member in good standing of a tightly knit club that refused to question why a woman whose main job seemed to be to harangue press secretaries and presidents deserved a front-row seat in the briefing room....

Journalists, especially those who spend a great deal of time together, don't usually turn on each other. If Thomas was spewing bias and bile, the reasoning went, what was the harm?

Bias and bile? Kurtz delivered the proof:

There was something to admire in Thomas' determination to ask uncomfortable questions. But when she declared George W. Bush the "worst president ever" in 2003, she shed any pretense of fair-mindedness. As time went on, her questions turned into speeches, as in this 2007 challenge to Bush over Iraq:

"Mr. President, you started this war. It's a war of your choosing. You can end it, alone. Today. At this point bring in peacekeepers, U.N. peacekeepers. Two million Iraqis have fled the country as refugees. Two million more are displaced. Thousands and thousands are dead. Don't you understand? We brought the al-Qaeda into Iraq." One might agree or disagree with those sentiments, but she was performing as an activist, not a journalist.

Kurtz goes on to write that "Hearst bears some responsibility for keeping Thomas on as her behavior grew more disturbing."

This is reminiscent of the New York Times story about Thomas (6/7/10) lamenting the "increasingly hostile and outlandish nature of her questions"--which was illustrated by the observation that Thomas "seemed particularly critical of the Iraq War and repeatedly pointed out during White House briefings that the American-led invasion was costing civilian lives."

Kurtz also led his Sunday CNN show with the Thomas controversy (6/13/10). To drive home the point that Thomas was trouble, he showed these apparently damning excerpts:

THOMAS: Does the president think that the Palestinians have a right to resist 35 years of brutal military occupation and suppression? It could have stopped the bombardment of Lebanon. We have that much control with the Israelis.

TONY SNOW, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: I don't think so, Helen.

THOMAS: We have collective punishment against all of Lebanon and Palestine.

SNOW: No, what's interesting, Helen--

THOMAS: And what's happening--and that's the perception of the United States.

SNOW: Well, thank you for the Hezbollah view.

THOMAS: Mr. President, you started this war, the war of your choosing. And you can end it alone today. Thousands and thousands are dead. Don't you understand?

Kurtz responded by wondering, "What correspondent or columnist gets to say things like that?"

He added:

If you look at some of the soundbites we just played, some of the questions that she's asked over the years, I would agree, to some extent, she basically didn't care what people thought of her. She was there to ask the kind of questions, particularly to President Bush, who she did not like, that she called one of the worst presidents ever.

Now hold on a second. Helen Thomas didn't care what people thought of her? And by "people," does that mean other White House correspondents? Scandalous indeed.

I have a question for the surprising number of people who are defending Helen Thomas' comments: Don't you think, given Thomas' record, that if she thought she had said something she could stand behind, she would be standing behind it?

Think Progress (6/7/10) claims Sarah Palin's criticism of the press regarding Helen Thomas is wrong, but I can't even figure out what she's trying to say. Here's Palin's Twitter statement:

Helen Thomas press pals condone racism? Heaven forbid "esteemed" press corps represent society's enlightened elite; Rest of us choose truth.

"Enlightened elite" would seem to be sarcasm--Palin does not actually think the "elite" is "enlightened"--but so would "Heaven forbid," suggesting that she thinks the press corps actually should represent this non-enlightened elite. I honestly can't puzzle out her intended message.

As for Thomas' statement itself, the message was all too clear: It was a call for ethnic cleansing, and she was right to apologize for it. It's a sad way to end an admirable career. I would note, though, along with Glenn Greenwald, that the acceptability of calls for ethnic cleansing in the U.S. corporate media depends on which ethnicity is to be cleansed.

FAIR associate Sam Husseini has blogged his reaction (Husseini.org, 7/4/09) to a Barack "Obama Photo Op with Helen Thomas" in which the president "came with cupcakes to wish Helen Thomas a happy birthday": "Now, if only he'd take her questions."

Obama claimed they have a "common birthday wish"--for a "real healthcare reform bill"--but Thomas is not in favor of Obama's plan, she's for single-payer.

Last week I bumped into Helen Thomas at her stomping ground, Mama Ayesha's restaurant in Washington, D.C., and she stressed the single-payer failure on the part of Obama.

I asked her if I was right, that Obama hadn't called on her since his first news conference. Yes, she confirmed. He's had five news conferences since and not a single question from her.

And why would that be? Well, "at his first news conference, she asked about Obama's buildup in Afghanistan and Pakistan and about Israel's nuclear weapons arsenal," but "Obama declined to 'speculate' about the existence of such an arsenal."

Husseini asserts that reporters "should be asking Obama: Why are you refusing to take Thomas' questions? Why are you refusing to acknowledge the existence of Israel's nuclear weapons arsenal?"

But then, Husseini makes a habit of asking exactly such questions so doggedly ignored by his corporate counterparts.