From a White House briefing …
HELEN THOMAS: Does the President want no troops out from Iraq on his watch? I’m talking about all the troops.
MS. PERINO: Well, 5,700 troops will be home by the end of the year, so that is some troops coming home. The President said that troop levels are going to be made by commanders on the ground, and that we’re going to have to talk about –
THOMAS: Why should it be? Why can’t the American people have a say?
MS. PERINO: — return on success. The American people have had a say. They elected a President who is their Commander-in-Chief and is making decisions based on what his commanders on the ground are telling him.
THOMAS: And you think that was the vote of the American people?
MS. PERINO: They elected a Commander-in-Chief, and the President is bringing home 5,700 troops, based on the recommendations of his commanders on the ground and based on return on success. Hopefully in the future we can bring home more, but it’s going to depend on what General Petraeus reports and remember he will come back in March.
THOMAS: Why should we depend on him?
MS. PERINO: Because he is the commander on the ground, Helen. He’s the one who is making sure that the situation is moving –
THOMAS: You mean how many more people we kill?
MS. PERINO: Helen, I find it really unfortunate that you use your front row position, bestowed upon you by your colleagues, to make such statements. This is a — it is an honor and a privilege to be in the briefing room, and to suggest that we, at the United States, are killing innocent people is just absurd and very offensive.
THOMAS: Do you know how many we have since the start of this war?
MS. PERINO: How many — we are going after the enemy, Helen. To the extent that any innocent Iraqis have been killed, we have expressed regret for it.
THOMAS: Oh, regret. It doesn’t bring back a life.
MS. PERINO: Helen, we are in a war zone, and our military works extremely hard to make sure that everyone has the opportunity for liberty and freedom and democracy, and that is exactly what they are doing.
I’m going to move on.
There is a video of it HERE. thnk you to Ian Schwartz
Could Helen Thomas possibly be less attractive? And I’m not talking about how she looks. She is just so full of herself that her peers have given her this ’seat of honor’ in the press room. Why? Why does she get to sit in the center of the front row? For that matter, why is she in the press room at all? It speaks volumes about her colleagues that they give her this place of honor in spite of the fact she has absolutely NO journalistic integrity and, in fact, avidly cheers on our enemies and against our Troops.
She wonders why we should rely on the Commander on the ground to make military decisions!!! She seems to think that we should take a vote every time one of our Soldiers needs to return fire or go on patrol. Is that what she wants? Or is she just looking for ways to hogtie the troops or for ways to get her own name in the media? She’s just ridiculous.
I would say that she’s lost her mind, but to my knowledge, this kind of behavior is the norm for her and always has been. She out and out accuses our Troops of killing ‘innocent’ people in Iraq. Its absurd and offensive and just plain disgusting. I wish they would just kick her nasty self right out of that press room and knock that smug grin off her silly oblivious hateful face.
Good for Perino for putting her in her place. Its too bad that Thomas is too arrogant to hear what anyone says to her.
tiara tip: PC Free Zone
I like her (Perino), she takes no nonsense or jibberish from the Liberal press.
And as for Helen Thomas, can someone please offer her a retirement package ??
I think it is very naive of you to state that Helen Thomas ha “NO journalistic integrity and, in fact, avidly cheers on our enemies and against our Troops.”
Helen has been around since the Kennedy administration and has grilled presidents and press secretaries of both parties. AND, what does her looks have to do with journalistic integrity? I, myself, am not a liberal, but I don’t think Dana Perino won this battle. There are casualties of war (yes, even innocent ones) and I’m SURE that the Whitehouse regrets these casualties as Perino states, however, I’m pretty sure that Helen Thomas had the upper hand with this exchange.
Agreed. I’m not a liberal either but the person who wrote this article is so biased they can’t even think. Helen Thomas is the real deal and Dana Perino is a mouthpiece.
Anyone who watched the video vs reading the transcript knows Dana was the loser.