My Lunch with Helen Thomas

Today was the day of our "Distinguished Lecturer" for 2006. We don't have a huge budget, so we usually get people who are only peripherally known. A few years ago, we had Arun Ghandi, whose grandfather was somewhat well-known. The year after that, we had Alina Fernandez, the daughter of Fidel Castro. Last year, we had Jerry Greenfield, who is literally half-famous. You likely don't know who he is unless I mention his name with that of his partner: Ben and Jerry. So this year, we had Helen Thomas, legendary White House correspondent, who is famous by virtue of having covered the last nine presidents.

Frankly, I was disappointed. I was happy that she identified herself as an unabashed liberal and a feminist, but, having done so, she didn't make a very good case for either liberalism or feminism. I agreed with about everything she said, but if I hadn't, I don't see that she would have convinced me. I'm pretty certain that the people sitting there who are conservative didn't hear much more than a bunch of Bush-bashing. She didn't present any particular evidence for her conclusions, and she didn't even give us a lot of cool inside scoop about the Presidents. I'm pretty sure I could have given that talk myself after an hour or so of research.

The question-and-answer session was particularly disappointing. Her prepared speech was fairly disjointed, but her response to questions was really scattered. It didn't help that she had trouble hearing the questions, so often she didn't even try to address the real question that was asked. I can't help but think that if Helen Thomas were in the audience, she wouldn't have let the speaker get away with it.

There was a kind of cool upside. I was one of a select few invited to join her for lunch. (Ironically, this is because of my membership in the Committee from Hell, about which I was complaining only yesterday.) Over lunch, I thought she was a bit better. She was still very opinionated, but I thought she at least stayed on point.

Overall, I can't help but wishing we had had a better speaker. If we are going to get an unabashed liberal to come to campus, I wish it would be someone who could give us liberals something to be proud about.