Helen's "Bias":

There have been a number of blog entries recently regarding whether White House press corps Grande Dame Helen Thomas does or does not reflect a distinct anti-conflict media bias when reporting on Iraq. I won't weigh in ... rather, you read this exchange between Thomas and Ari Fleischer during last Friday's White House press briefing and draw your own conclusions:

Helen.

Q Will you ask -- Ari, will you ask the President for me and for many, many others, has he really weighed the human cost on both sides, starting a war to go after one man?

MR. FLEISCHER: Helen, this is not a war to go after one man. This is a war, if there is a war, to go after one regime led by Saddam Hussein that possesses weapons of mass destruction that can take the lives of millions. That's why the United Nations called on Saddam Hussein to disarm. It is because Iran

-- Iraq possesses weapons of mass destruction and that is the core of the issue. They have not disarmed.

And we'll presume, for now, that Fleischer's invocation of Iran was nothing more than a Freudian slip.