The Guards Are Sleeping

Editor's Note: This is an excerpt from 'Stop the Next War Now: Effective Responses to Violence and Terrorism (Inner Ocean),' edited by Code Pink co-founders Medea Benjamin and Jodie Evans.

Helen Thomas, known as "the first lady" of the press, was a White House correspondent for four decades, sitting in the front row during presidential press conferences, asking the tough questions. She was the first woman to hold posts in the White House Correspondents' Association and the National Press Club. She now writes a syndicated column twice a week for the Hearst newspapers. She was one of the only "mainstream" journalists who vehemently opposed the invasion of Iraq and challenged the Bush administration on the fabrications and distortions that led the United States to war. The following is a conversation between Helen Thomas and CODEPINK cofounder Gael Murphy.

Gael Murphy: Our so-called independent media, the cornerstone of our democracy, have truly failed us in the most recent events around Iraq. They didn't do the investigations or critical analyses of the administration's policy toward Iraq. They didn't take into account opposing voices, alternative sources, and the millions of protesters. Why do you think the corporate media paid so little attention to exposing the flaws in the Bush administration's justification to go to war?

Helen Thomas: I think that the media really went into a coma and rolled over and played dead, just as Congress did. It was a politics of fear after 9/11. Everybody, even reporters, started wearing flags after 9/11. At these White House briefings there was an atmosphere among the reporters that you would be considered unpatriotic or un-American if you were asking any tough questions. Then it segued into a war where you'd be seen as jeopardizing the troops if you asked certain questions.

And the administration did an amazing job of linking Saddam Hussein and terrorism. In every briefing I attended in the lead-up to the war, the spokespeople would say, "Saddam Hussein, 9/11"--"Saddam Hussein, 9/11" in the same breath. Obviously they had put the two together and wanted the media to as well. Then a week or so before the war they said there was no connection. Well, by this time, the job was done. It was a beautiful propaganda message, and it worked.

Another problem is that there are no investigative reporters anymore. During the unraveling of the Watergate scandal, the Washington Post had eighteen reporters on the story and the New York Times had an equal number, digging in everywhere. In this case, no one was around, really, to challenge the administration.

But there were a lot of alternative sources of news and investigative journalism, and there was also the world press doing its job. Don't mainstream journalists look at these other sources?

We have a herd mentality here. It was groupthink. Nobody wanted to get out of line. Reporters felt that they shouldn't push too hard. I didn't feel that way. I was against this war from day one, and I kept challenging the White House spokesperson, Ari Fleischer. One day, about six months before the U.S. invasion, I said, "Ari, why does the president want to kill thousands of people?" I mean that's about as simplistic as I could put it. And he said, "Why are you saying that, Helen? They have a dictator! They have no say in their country!" I said, "Neither do we." I went up to Condoleezza Rice after the U.S. invasion and said, "Where are the weapons? Where's the smoking gun? Where's the mushroom cloud?" She said, "Saddam used these weapons twelve years ago, he had them. ..." And then she went up in smoke herself. She flew out of there with her eyes blazing, so angry that she should be challenged.

Regarding the White House press corps, is it sort of the cream of the crop of journalists who get to be part of those briefings?