Open Letter to Jonah Pantsload Goldberg

Dear Jonah:

     I just caught sight of your inexplicably syndicated and amplified one man Horah on Helen Thomas' freshly dug grave, "Tributes to Helen Thomas Misguided" (retitled "The real Helen Thomas" in its reprinting in that right wing septic tank known as the American Enterprise Institute's website). And I think a response is in order.
     First off, your screed gives the appearance of an ant shaking its fist at the gigantic boot heel that had just crushed its hill. Thomas' many accomplishments will stand head and shoulders above that of most journalists, not the least of which will be yours when you're finally exposed as just another semi-anonymous pro-Israel right wing rodeo clown in a nation already writhing with them.
     Secondly, you immediately lose credibility when you start your grave-dancing with a quote from a John Belushi movie. Indeed, if cholesterol for once proves to be our friend and your time mercifully comes soon, may an army of left wing journalists dance Tarantellas and Irish jigs on your massive grave and bring to light one last time your many literary transgressions that make David Brooks look like IF Stone by conspicuous relief.
      Chiefly, in our obituary we will focus on your wearisome and constant support for the terrorist state of Israel, which, along with Thomas' longevity, seemed to be the guiding light of your scurrilous hit job on her that I presume you wouldn't have dared to write when Helen was still alive.
     Let's start off with this misogynistic salvo:

Obviously it's an exaggeration to suggest that women wouldn't have made so many worthwhile gains in journalism were it not for Thomas. But she was the first female member of a lot of clubs, and that counts for something.

     Shorter Pantsload Goldberg: Let's just ignore Helen Thomas' pioneering efforts because if it wasn't for her, someone would've been a trailblazer for female journalism. Which is kind of like one of us saying., "Let's just forget everything Reagan ever did because if he didn't come along, well, some other Republican psychopath would've tripled the deficit, smashed the unions, propped up fascist, right wing governments, cut a sleazy and highly illegal arms for hostages deal with the Iranians and cut and run from terrorists in Beirut and otherwise left this nation in an economic and diplomatic shambles." Or, "Let's just forget Bob Novak ever existed because if he didn't, well, some other partisan right wing journalist would've outed Valerie Plame." And, who knows, if Novak had never been born, maybe that traitor would've been you, Jonah. One can dream, right? Onward, non-Christian soldier!

Hamas was less interested in Thomas' role as a pathbreaking feminist icon than the fact that, at a 2010 White House Jewish heritage event, she growled into a camera that the Jews should "get the hell out" of Israel (or Palestine, in her telling) and go back to Poland, Germany and America. That statement, cheered by Hezbollah at the time, was too much for Hearst, which quickly ushered her off to retirement, where she cultivated her status as a truth-teller martyred by the Zionists who control everything in America.

     OK, I don't recall Helen Thomas ever claiming the Zionists were in control of everything. Maybe you're thinking of Nixon and Billy Graham's secretly-taped conversation when Graham said the Jews were running the entire mainstream media to Nixon while he bobbed his unctuous head in agreement.
     And, I would think it goes without saying Israel should get the fuck out of Palestine and to stop using the Holocaust as a fig leaf to justify acts of terrorism that have affected not only their Arab and Muslim neighbors and even peaceful, unarmed aid flotillas but your own government and its military that you piously wave pom-poms for when it comes time to fight another proxy war for Israel. Israel has no right to Bogart the Holocaust like the last joint at a Grateful Dead concert. They do not own the Holocaust and they've had seven fucking decades to get over it. They do not have more of a right to exist than any other nation. In fact, in light of how hideously they've squandered their sovereignty, I'd say Israel has less of a right to exist since their government's entire guiding principle seems to be hysterical, paranoid militarism carried out by those who didn't even live through the Holocaust and whose knowledge of it is purely second-hand and anecdotal.

In most obituaries this incident comes out of the blue, often chalked up to the fact her parents were Lebanese immigrants (an odd slap at Lebanese Americans). There's no mention that her hatred of Israel, and supporters of Israel, was a constant for most of her career.

     No, Helen wrote some pretty balanced articles for most of her career, which is a fuck of a lot more than can said for you, whose ignorant hatred of anything Arab, Muslim or liberal has only served to make you just another shit-smeared, partisan fuckstick in the sex shop of Republican ideology. Have I said, yet, how desperately I want you to painfully die? No? Then remind me later, Depends Boy.

Thomas spent much of her career as the "epitome of the wire service stenographer," then-New Republic writer Jonathan Chait wrote in 2006. Contrary to the myth of the dogged journalist, she wrote mostly puff pieces — about Democratic presidents. She only became a left-wing icon when, as a columnist, she started ranting at the George W. Bush White House.

     Oh, there you go. When looking for corroboration, always default to the tried-and-true method of citing another right wing Jew psychopath. People like Chait and you are the reasons for the late William F. Buckley pinching the bridge of his nose at the end of his life and wishing he'd founded Playboy or Mad Magazine instead of the New Republic and the national laughingstock hacks like you, Kristol and Chait have turned it into.
     And, no, Thomas was a liberal icon long before your boy W stole the White House in December 2000. Someone had to put that shit-kicking rube's cloven hooves to the fire and Helen Thomas was virtually the only journalist in America who had the balls to do it. That's why for decades she sat front and center in the WH press briefing room while you were writing fluff pieces carrying rancid, cholera-riddled water for right wingers, a fate to which you'll obviously be relegated until we finally wake up and realize what a slimy knob you really are.

Still, as time went by, the awards poured in as she became a Washington institution, with cameos in Hollywood movies and even "The Simpsons." But the "odd thing about her awards and citations," Chait noted, "is that they almost never mention any specific contributions she has made to journalism save for being female and, well, old."

     If your intention was to bask in Jonathan Chait's misogynism and ageism and show that he's at least as despicable an asswipe as you, then you've admirably succeeded. Your sneering at Thomas' legitimate awards and Hollywood guest appearances also smacks of jealousy because you know that, aside from being "honored" with the American Enterprise Institute's "Right Wing Asshole of the Year" Award, such honors will elude you even if you live to be older than Methuselah. Or maybe even Bob Novak.
     Most of us live through enough adversity and turmoil so we never really know how kindly or harshly posterity will judge us, Jonah. Thomas, a rare exception, went to her grave assured of her rightful place as the doyenne of American journalism. And I think we can preemptively write your own obituary by correctly relegating you to the Andrew Breitbart/James O'Keefe/Michelle Malkin School of Journalism, one that bases its entire credibility on heavily edited videos, blind partisanship and a willingness to suck up to the easily enraged and the stupid and willfully ignorant.