BRANCACCIO: In the sacred annals of Washington lore 'tis written that when God looked out upon the heavens and the Earth and pronounced good all that God had made, Helen Thomas had to check it out for herself. So it came to pass that she was the first reporter to find the worm in the apple and the snake in the grass. Apocryphal, of course.

Nonetheless, many consider Helen Thomas the mother of tough questions, the goddess of healthy skepticism, the queen of the raised eyebrow.

She's been asking tough questions at White House press conferences for four decades, and every President in my lifetime and every press secretary, including our man Bill Moyers, has the scars to prove it.

Helen Thomas began her Presidential beat with John F. Kennedy in the 1960s, and she's had a front row seat to history ever since.

As dean of the press corps, Helen Thomas would always be called on to ask the first question.

After she retired from UPI four years ago Hearst Newspapers offered her a job as a columnist. Her latest book is called THANKS FOR THE MEMORIES, MR. PRESIDENT.

From his first news conference, President Bush seemed less than thrilled by Thomas's questions.

PRESIDENT BUSH: Yes, ma'am. You're next.

THOMAS: Why do you refuse to respect the wall between church and state, and you know that the mixing of religion and government for centuries has led to slaughter?

BRANCACCIO: And it was at a news conference a week before the outbreak of war in Iraq that the President declined to signal her to ask the first question.

PRESIDENT BUSH: Ron Fournier.

BRANCACCIO: In fact, she didn't get the chance to ask any questions at all.

[...]

BRANCACCIO: And there's no consequence to asking very tough questions?

THOMAS: I am in the back row now.

BRANCACCIO: You're in the back row.

THOMAS: Yes. And I'm not called on. I think that's a consequence. But that's alright.