NYC Letter: “'Course I'm Respectable. I'm Old. Politicians, Ugly Buildings, And Whores All Get Respectable If They Last Long Enough.”*

We come to this late, but we hope not too late:

Veteran wire reporter Helen Thomas is vowing to 'kill herself' if Dick Cheney announces he is running for president.

The newspaper HILL first reported the startling claim on Thursday.

"The day Dick Cheney is going to run for president, I'll kill myself," she told the HILL. "All we need is one more liar."

Thomas added, "I think he'd like to run, but it would be a sad day for the country if he does."

Many people are petitioning, actually, pleading and weeping, rending their garments and slapping the backs of their wrists like seals, to get Mr. Cheney to announce his candidacy this very moment just for the sport of Ms. Thomas's suicide. Now this is both ill-mannered...and, as anyone who has read Ms. Thomas knows, unnecessary.

The plug was pulled on Ms. Thomas long ago. She cannot perform any brain functions higher than, well, incontinence.

Helen Thomas? -- OR -- A Potato With A Bad Toupee?

This is the sort of low humor that does nothing to advance serious political discourse -- but enough about Ms. Thomas's pretensions as the moral voice of the Fourth Estate. If you would like to give Karl Rove a run for his money and advise the Vice President on trading up, drop Mr. Cheney a line at:

vice.president-at-whitehouse-dot-gov

* Noah Cross in Chinatown