OH, THAT HELEN

Legendary White House correspondent Helen Thomas recently gave the staff of a small weekly newspaper an earful on the Bush presidency at a social event recently.

And she added, "apropos of nothing," that when Al Neuharth, founder of USA Today, interviewed Fidel Castro a couple of years ago, he asked Castro, "What's the difference between your democracy and ours?" and Castro replied, "I don't have to answer questions from Helen Thomas."

Ouch!