all presidents rail against the press—it goes with the turf

Sharing the same birthday as President Obama (*1961), reporter and author Helen Amelia Thomas (†2013) was born on this day in 1920.
A veteran member of the White House Press Corps, Thomas had a career as a correspondent that covered ten US presidential administrations, beginning with coverage of President-elect John F. Kennedy in 1960. Over the decades establishing herself as an unrelenting fixture of news media and commanding respect of all world leaders, when asked once what was the difference between democracy in America and democracy in Cuba, Fidel Castro quipped that he did not have to answer to Helen Thomas—which Thomas took as a great compliment.