CNN's Don Lemon Acts as Helen Thomas Apologist in Fleischer Interview
CNN anchor Don Lemon repeatedly defended rabidly anti-Israel columnist
Helen Thomas as he interviewed Ari Fleischer late in the 7 pm Eastern
hour of Sunday's Newsroom. After playing Thomas's remarks, Lemon lauded
her in his first question to Fleischer: "Helen Thomas has broken down
many barriers for women....She has a lifelong achievement...in
journalism. Should that count for anything?" [audio clips available here]
The former press secretary
strongly condemned Thomas's comments and proposed that "if somebody said
that all blacks need to leave America and go home to Africa, they would
have already lost their jobs," while stating that two of them "always
ideologically disagreed, but I liked her." Lemon followed through on
this point: "Yeah, that was my next point. It's- I know that people
disagree ideologically- but you can still be friends or still be
co-workers. Have you reached out to her at all? Have you tried to talk
to her about why she said this?"
Later in the segment, Lemon played a clip from 2001 where the Hearst
columnist berated Fleischer for not giving an answer to her liking and
accusing the Bush administration of being one-sided towards Israel.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE REPORTER (from 2001 White House press conference): ...President [Bush] to meet with [Yasser] Arafat?
FLEISCHER: John, as soon as we have anything to announce, if we do, we will let you know.
THOMAS: That's not an answer. This has been a very one-sided dialogue, and not talking to- any president not talking to any Palestinian leader face to face, and we want to know why?
FLEISCHER: Helen, the President has met with many-
THOMAS: There's two sides to this conflict, you know.
FLEISCHER: The President has met with many Arab leaders who have come here and met with him in the Oval Office.
THOMAS: They're not Palestinians-
FLEISCHER: Secretary Powell, as you know, will be meeting with the Palestinian Authority tonight, tomorrow and the next several days.
The anchor replied, "You
have to appreciate her tenacity, as a journalist, to do something like
that. But did you sense any bias when you worked together with her?"
Lemon
then read from Thomas's "apology" statement: "I want to say that she
did apologize, and here's what she says. She says, 'I deeply regret my
comments I made last week regarding the Israelis and the Palestinians.
They do not reflect my heartfelt belief that peace will come to the
Middle East only when all parties recognize the need for mutual respect
and tolerance. May that day come soon.' Apparently, you're not
satisfied with that, and apparently, her agent and the co-author of her
book are not satisfied, as well, with that." Speaking of apparently,
Thomas realized that the statement wasn't satisfactory either, as
Hearst Publishing announced
her immediate retirement on Monday.
The CNN anchor concluded
the interview by asking Fleischer if he was concerned about any
backlash for being so forceful about Thomas's remarks: "Are you
concerned about any- I don't know- alienation from people who may not
agree with you on this issue?"
Almost two months earlier, during an April 11 interview with former Republican
congressman J.C. Watts, Lemon insisted that hate speech was much
more prevalent on the conservative side of politics: "We have seen it on
the Republican and the conservative side much, much more than on the
Democratic side. The name calling in groups, with signs, calling people,
you know, epithets, comparing them to Hitler. We've seen it much more
from the conservatives, from the tea party movement."
-Matthew
Balan is a news analyst at the Media Research Center. You can follow him
on Twitter here.
