Helen Thomas President Quotations

Every President hates the Press.

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.

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.

Vice President Dick Cheney reportedly has been disturbed over what he sees as the erosion of presidential powers since the Watergate scandal and has urged Bush to take a stronger stand against what Cheney sees as congressional intrusions into the executive branch.

If you want to be President, decide it at the age of five, and then live accordingly.

The presidential news conference is indispensable because it is the only forum in our society where you can be questioned on a regular basis and held accountable.

I respect the office of the presidency, but I never worship at the shrines of our public servants...The Washington press corps has the privilege of asking the president of the United States what he is doing and why.

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

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.

The presidency awed me, but presidents do not. Perhaps I have always expected too much of them, but I believe that when they reach the highest office in the land, they should live up to the greatest honor that can come to a person in American political life. Some have stood the test better than others.

Presidents hate the press. They hate me most of the time.

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

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

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.

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.

We are the only institution in our society that can question a president on a regular basis and make him accountable. Otherwise, he could be king.