Hearst News Service columnist Helen Thomas has unambiguous feelings about the Bush administration.

"This government lies," she said Wednesday to editors, reporters and interns from The Indianapolis Star.

As for the Bush administration's claims that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, one of the key arguments for going to war against Saddam Hussein, Thomas had one word: "Baloney."

"I think we have a government that absolutely is ignoring the truth and a press that is ignoring the truth," she said during a luncheon at the Downtown Radisson Hotel.

Thomas, 83, who worked for United Press International for 57 years as a correspondent and White House bureau chief, began covering the Oval Office during the Kennedy administration.

The columnist said she thinks the press today is doing a terrible job covering the presidency -- worse than she ever has seen.

"I really think that reporters for two, three months after 9/11 -- everyone was afraid to ask their question," Thomas said. "They would not ask any question that would appear to be unpatriotic."

This reticent culture continued into the war in Iraq, where reporters feared questions would be perceived as jeopardizing American troops, Thomas said.

"I think she's absolutely right -- dead on," said James W. Brown, executive associate dean of the Indiana University School of Journalism at IUPUI. "The evidence is there -- the Bush administration lies, lies, lies.

"The strongest, most aggressive person taking the Bush administration to task is not someone from The New York Times or The Washington Post, but Michael Moore, albeit from his own viewpoint," Brown said. "He is asking the questions."

But Rich Noyes, research director of the Virginia-based Media Research Center, which describes itself as a conservative media watchdog group, said Thomas' remarks were "a totally fictional account of what happened since 9/11."

"By early 2002, it was really back to normal, with reporters asking many, many tough questions both about domestic policy and foreign policy," Noyes said. He said his group documented heavy skepticism toward the war in Iraq.

"When Helen Thomas says the press was too soft, what she really means is the press should have been more of an actor in the process instead of covering the process," Noyes said. "That's just not the right role for a journalist."

Thomas openly acknowledges her politics -- "I was born a liberal, and I'll die a liberal," she said -- but added that they were not reflected in her work as a reporter. She called the notion of a liberal bias in the media fictitious.

© 2004 IndyStar.com

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