Saint Jesse Helms
Marc Thiessen deifies Helms in Monday’s WaPo. Oh poor Jesse! How you stood up to such horrible men like Clinton and Castro! The quote that really got me though was this:
What his critics could not appreciate is that, by the time he left office, Jesse Helms had become a mainstream conservative. And it was not because Helms had moved toward the mainstream — it was because the mainstream moved toward him.
The sad thing is, the unabashed racist, who bragged to Sen. Arlen Specter when Carol Moseley-Braun shared an elevator with them, “I’m going to make her cry. I’m going to sing Dixie until she cries.” (Chicago Sun-Times, 8/5/93). This is the man famously responded to a caller to Larry King in 1995 who said, “I want to thank you for everything you’ve done to help keep down the niggers,” responded with a salute and “Well, thank you, I think.” (Wilmington Star-News, 9/16/95) The same man who described gays as “weak, morally sick wretches,”(Newsweek, 12/5/94) and opposed AIDS funding because it was divine retribution, because “There is not one single case of AIDS in this country that cannot be traced in origin to sodomy.”(States News Service, 5/17/88)
Christopher Hitchens has it right when he calls him, “a provincial redneck”. Unfortunately so is Marc Thiessen claim of him being, “a mainstream conservative.” Just as Barry Goldwater famously went from reactionary conservative to liberal, by not changing a position. As it’s been said, “Goldwater didn’t leave the Republican party. The Republican party left him.”
The best comment I have say I heard about the passing of Jesse Helms, comes from Ryan, “I hope that Heaven has some sort of affirmative action, and Helms loses his spot to a minority.”
It would be fitting. Burn Hell you old embarrassing son of a bitch.
