[a fool in paradise]

Isn't it amazing how one fifteen-second-sound byte can bring a career to a grinding halt? I'm sure Helen Thomas is reflecting on that point even now. Gone are Helen Thomas's days of being a highly-respected news reporter.

The "soundbite" was as indefensible as Robert Byrd's continued use of the n-word (with the excuse that "there are white n*****rs too").

I didn't see Helen Thomas as a "highly-respected news reporter". She was a bitter liberal hag. She was not respectful of President Bush and others as well.

Dan Rather and Walter Cronkite were formerly "respected" until their true personas were revealed.

A journalist can be a jerk personally and still a good journalist, but when a journalist distorts reality and even fabricates "evidence" out of whole cloth to turn a war or an election, and the public becomes aware of it, they are disgraced.

[Erasmus]

Gone are Helen Thomas's days of being a highly-respected news reporter.

Those days were gone about the time they invented moveable type.