ISSUES: Rosie O’Donnell defends Helen Thomas

I tend to agree with Rosie, Thomas was a true Pioneer.

It’s very sad that the amazing career of Helen Thomas came to an end this week following controversial remarks the 89-year-old Washington D.C. journalism icon made regarding Jewish people in Israel.

After a YouTube video of Helen saying Israeli’s should “get the hell out of Palestine” and suggested they go to Germany or Poland, she issued an apology saying she “deeply regretted” her comments and said: They do not reflect my heart-felt 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.”

But it was too late to save her job.

Rosie O’Donnell has been one of the few people to speak out in defense of Helen who had covered every president dating back to the later years of the Eisenhower administration.

“Now, I think, in the year 2010, what she was saying was not, ‘Go back to the ovens,’ Rosie said this week on her radio show. “What she was saying was, the homeland was originally Palestinians’ and it’s now occupied by Israel, and Palestinians should be afforded human and civil rights.”

It’s unfortunate that Helen didn’t come up with a more diplomatic way to express her strong opinion. As a columnist for Hearst News Service, she of course has been far more opinionated publicly than she was as the longtime White House correspondent for UPI where she would expected to keep such things to herself.

I don’t agree with what Helen said or how she said it. But I still have so much respect for what this amazing woman, who turns 90 in August, has accomplished and have read two of her books: Front Row at the White House : My Life and Times Thanks for the Memories, and Mr. President : Wit and Wisdom from the Front Row at the White House.

She is a true pioneer and helped break down the gender walls among the Washington press corps. She also asked questions of our presidents that we wanted answered. I want to remember her career for that kind of persistence and remarkable drive.