WHITE HOUSE - HELEN THOMAS ACCUSES OBAMA OF TRYING TO MANAGE THE PRESS

HELEN THOMAS ACCUSES OBAMA OF TRYING TO MANAGE THE PRESS

Veteran White House correspondent Helen Thomas, 88, who was ignored by President Bush and relegated to the rear of the White House briefing room during his administration, lashed out at the Obama administration for what she called "a pattern of controlling the press." During a briefing on Wednesday with White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs, Thomas said that even "Nixon didn't try to do that. ... What the hell do they think we are, puppets?" She objected to Obama's decision to invite a writer from the Huffington Post to ask him a question sent in from a citizen in Iran. She interrupted when Gibbs promised CBS News correspondent Chip Reid that he would "interrupt" the tradition of allowing the Associated Press to ask the first question and let Reid ask him on Thursday about the questions raised by the audience at Wednesday's town hall meeting in Annandale, VA. Thomas charged that Gibbs was openly attempting to manage the news. "I'm not saying there has never been managed news before, but this is carried to a fare-thee-well--for the town halls, for the press conferences," she said. "It's blatant. ... They ought to be hanging their heads in shame."

02/07/2009