HELEN THOMAS

I'm a liberal, I was born a liberal, and I will be a liberal 'til the day I die.

I was in Independence, Missouri when Johnson signed the Medicare bill, with Truman standing there. Truman had first proposed Medicare, but couldn't get it through.

Great presidents take stands, and they fight off these people who really are so far to the right. I don't want to call them names, even though they would call me names.

We got the vote, which we should've been born with, in 1920. Everything we've had to struggle for - it's ridiculous.

We in the press have a special role since there is no other institution in our society that can hold the President accountable. I do believe that our democracy can endure and prevail only if the American people are informed.

Many voters think about the makeup of the Supreme Court when they are choosing a president. The justices deal not only with constitutional issues but also with social issues that were unknown to the founding fathers who wrote the Constitution more than 200 years ago.

I'm of Arab background.

If we care about the children, the grandchildren, the future generations, we need to make sure that they do not become the cannon fodder of the future.

As a reporter having covered him for eight years in the White House, I am sure the press could have done a better job if we had known the real Ronald Reagan.

Maybe the Jefferson case will give members of Congress second thoughts the next time they get ready to legislate away the rights of ordinary Americans.

To my mind, a president should care about all people, and he didn't, which is why I will always feel Reagan lacked soul.

I censored myself for 50 years when I was a reporter. Now I wake up and ask myself, 'Who do I hate today?'

I think that presidents deserve to be questioned. Maybe irreverently, most of the time. Bring 'em down a size. You see a president, ask a question. You have one chance in the barrel. Don't blow it.

We don't go into journalism to be popular. It is our job to seek the truth and put constant pressure on our leaders until we get answers.

All presidents rail against the press. It goes with the turf.

President Bush has asserted the right to wiretap and eavesdrop on any American without a warrant in the name of fighting terrorism. He has asserted presidential power beyond stated constitutional rights, and there is no Republican gutsy enough to call his hand.

This is the worst President ever. He George W. Bush is the worst President in all of American history.

You don't spread democracy through the barrel of a gun.

I'm covering the worst president in American history.

I had a lot of fun bantering back and forth with Kennedy. But for ease and comfort, it would be Gerald Ford. He was a down-home type. I came from the Midwest and he came from the Midwest. He was nonaggressive and kindly.

I got into the Kennedy White House because at the time I was president of the Women's National Press Club, and they assigned me to cover the early days of the Kennedy campaign. Jackie especially. Everyone was interested in the family.

I can remember the morning after President Nixon won re-election in 1972. His chief of staff, H.R. Haldeman, called a Cabinet meeting and told the members: 'You are all a bunch of burned-out volcanoes;' and asked for their resignations.

Congress, the White House, and Hollywood, Wall Street, are owned by the Zionists.

People will never know how hard it is to get information, especially if it's locked up behind official doors where, if politicians had their way, they'd stamp 'top secret' on the color of the walls.

Presidential power was overruled by the high bench in July 1974, when President Nixon was ordered to turn over some audio tapes of his White House conversations, including the 'smoking gun' tape of June 23, 1972, that revealing the Watergate cover up.