Barack Obama is celebrating today his own birthday (48)
Like reporter Helen Thomas (89)
So he went to White House Press Room where there she was: seating in the front row.
The oldest working journalist in Washington DC told him that her birthday wishes were “world peace and a real health care reform bill.”
Obama carried cupcakes into the room where reporters were with his spokesman, Robert Gibbs, at the daily briefing.
Watch the video here.
As a White House correspondent for the United Press International, Thomas began covering the Kennedy White House.
Thomas resigned from UPI the day after the announcement of its acquisition by the Unification Church leader Reverend Sun Myung Moon.
Since then she works for Hearst Newspapers as a columnist
Bush didn’t like her, and she didn’t liker him either.
She wrote:
“As he leaves office, President Bush is passing on to his successor two wars and a growing economic debacle. What a way to go!”
Usually dressed in red she is invariably the first or second reporter the president calls upon.
And she is the one that still carries the tradition of closing the White House press conferences by saying, “Thank you, Mr. President”
She is the author of Front Row at the White House: My Life and Times (Scribner, 1999)
Happy birthday fierce Helen!
(Picture by Alex Wong/Getty Images)
Tags: BARACK OBAMA, Bush, Hearst Newspapers, Helen Thomas, Kennedy, Reverend Sun Myung Moon, Robert Gibbs, UPI, Unification Church, White House Press Room