Helen Thomas

The interwebs are abuzz with the news that Helen Thomas finally resigned after her racist comments regarding Israel were spread around the web on Friday.

I’ve never respected Thomas. Sure, she was a pioneering journalist and served in the White House Press Corps for more than fifty years, but her biases have been well-documented for decades…at least. This last comment was so over-the-top that her employers and fellow media members could no longer look the other way. Their tolerance for the the elderly woman ran out.

What Thomas said is wrong, and I’m happy to see her gone. However, it frightens me when those on the Right call for infringements on free speech because they don’t like the messanger. While awful, Thomas’ comments were within her First Amendment rights according to the Supreme Court.

Thomas is a vile, racist woman, but what she said appears to be off the clock. She made those comments as an individual to an unknown blogger. It was absolutely wrong of her to say them, but should someone be fired for uttering their opinion on their own time?

While Thomas is of Lebanese descent and by all accounts anti-Semitic given her rantings posed as questions at White House press briefings, support of her “retirement” from the Right only enforces PC speech codes. Freedom of speech works both ways, regardless if we like the message or not. Hate speech and offensive language are vague and are determined by the receiver. Unless we appointed an Orwellian speech code police, Thomas was still within her Constitutional rights.

While I believe that Thomas should be dismissed, it should be for displaying racism and anti-semitism on the clock while working as a professional journalist. There are clearly decades of footage from press briefings that back up this claim. However, the offense that led to her retirement was made as a personal comment. The Right is using this opportunity to knock off an enemy for behavior that the WHPC overlooked for decades. In this case, I don’t believe the ends justify the means.

Situations such as these are sticky. Thomas is arguably a public figure, making it harder to differentiate her personal comments from professional ones. In order to get rid of a figure that conservatives dislike, we’ve embraced the left’s tactic of silencing the speaker when offensive comments are made. This sanitizes our speech as Americans, and only permits “approved” ideas to be uttered. That’s murky territory that the Right should not embrace, regardless of the opportunity.

Furthermore, with Flipcams and web access anywhere, who has not said something stupid that could get us fired? While I’ve never uttered racist beliefs like Thomas, I’m sure I’ve said inappropriate comments on occasion. Most of us are below the radar, and no one really cares until someone makes the news. How is this different from calls to fire Erick Erickson from CNN because he made comments that inflamed the left? Both made statements that offended various segments of the American population. While I agree with Erickson and disagree with Thomas, there are certainly Americans out there who feel the reverse.

Our Constitutional rights are precious and should be respected at all costs. Even when someone I dislike says something incredibly wrong and offensive, shouldn’t he or she have the right to say it? Conservatives are acting no different than liberals on this issue, and that worries me.

I do not want to defend Thomas in any way, but every time someone is publicly flogged or loses their job over controversial comments, it gives defenders of hate speech policies more legitimacy. The Founders didn’t provide a “no offense” clause in the first amendment. The Freedom of Speech is the freedom to offend. While a nearly 90-year-old woman should know better, Thomas is within her rights to say terrible comments like she did.

This is a slippery slope. Those of us on the Right should be wary of shallow victories that undermine our Constitutional rights.

In completely unsurprising news, Salon’s Broadsheet barely took any time at all to blame this on Helen Thomas’ gender. Does Anna Clark really think that the first woman to serve in the WHPC, serve as president for the Gridiron Club, National Press Club and White House Correspondents Association is going to be kicked out a few months short of 90 due to sexism or ageism? That’s a liberal grasping at straws to try to justify the atrocious comments of an old racist and make liberal land a happy place again. If liberals had owned up to Thomas’ proclivities decades ago, they wouldn’t be left with so much pie on their face now. No one comes out a winner in this situation.