ProgressOhio

Veteran White House correspondent Helen Thomas has learned over 60 years of reporting to be skeptical of our nation's leaders, and she's not about to change for Barack Obama.

"We don't have to worship at the shrine of any president," the 88-year-old journalist told Quaker peace activists gathered this week in Washington D.C. in a generally upbeat mood about the coming change of administrations.

Obama will only succeed in office if he can demonstrate the courage to act along with a willingness to run an open administration, Thomas told the annual meeting of the annual meeting of the Friends Committee on National Legislation (FCNL).

Speaking from in front of a huge banner proclaiming "War Is Not the Answer," Thomas' remarks were a corrective abrasive to Quakers hoping the Obama victory on Nov. 4 will lead to a quick end to the war-and-torture-and-spying policies of the outgoing Bush administration. Noting that Obama has promised only a slow withdrawal of troops from Iraq over his first term, while vowing to increase troop strength in Afghanistan, Thomas asked, "Where's the peacemaker?"

Thomas began her White House career covering the Kennedy administration in 1961. In her experience, she said chief executives tend to isolate themselves from the people who elected them, listening instead to their cadre of experts and supporters. "They've already walled off Obama," she said.

The so-called "First Lady of the Press" said she will attack Obama with hard questions during press conferences just as she has previous presidents, including George Bush. "You bet (I will)," she said, "but I'm not immune to the fact that it (Obama's election) is a great triumph for our democracy and for our country."

Obama, who held infrequent press conferences during the campaign, needs to meet with the media at least twice monthly to be credible, said Thomas.

The senior member of the White House press corps was even harder on her colleagues, saying in effect they were lazy and gutless in letting the Bush administration get away with so many crimes against the Constitution. "All of them (reporters) are well-intentioned, but I've known the best of them, and they're all dead."

Although Thomas spent most of her career as a wire-service reporter for United Press International, she know longer bothers to shade her political views.

"I was born a liberal and I'll be one until the end of my life," she said. "I can't see being anything other than someone who cares about people and about humanity.

"I write an opinion column now, and so I wake up every morning and say to myself, 'Who do I hate today?' "

(This is the first of -- hopefully - several reports from the FCNL meeting this week at Georgetown University. For information about FCNL, go to www.fcnl.org)