Gibbs: Helen Thomas remarks 'offensive and reprehensible'
By Anne E. Kornblut
With Helen Thomas's seat conspicuously empty at the Monday briefing, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs assailed the veteran reporter for her remark that Jews should return to Germany and Eastern Europe.
With Helen Thomas's seat conspicuously empty at the Monday briefing, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs assailed the veteran reporter for her remark that Jews should return to Germany and Eastern Europe.
"Those remarks were offensive and reprehensible," Gibbs said, noting that Thomas has apologized. Her sentiments "do not reflect certainly most of the people here and certainly not those of the administration."
Thomas, 89, who has covered the White House for decades, canceled a speech over the weekend and was dropped by a speakers' bureau that represented her after her comment that Israelis should "get the hell out of Palestine." The controversy comes at a precarious moment in the Middle East following an Israeli assault on an aid flotilla that left 11 dead and prompted an international outcry.