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R.I.P. Jesse Helms
By the way the MSM reported Jesse Helms’s death you would think he was a member of the KKK Oh that was Democrat Robert Byrd. Billy Bob Cracker, President and CEO of the Klu Klux Klan (KKK), has chosen Senator Robert Byrd (D-Wva.) as this year’s recipient of the KKK’s Lifetime Achievement Award. source
Jesse Helms was a great help to many Cubans fleeing Castros Island prison and Cubans will never forget..
Brent Bozell has a very well written article about Jesse Helms and those who are the real haters…mpress
by Brent Bozell
Conservatives across America mourned at the news of the death of Senator Jesse Helms, a man credited with impeccable conservative credentials in the U.S. Senate, a conscience of a movement devoted to the defeat of communism abroad and the defense of liberty at home. He was the staunchest of social conservatives as well, unflinching in his opposition to the abortion lobby and the gay agenda. To liberals he was “Senator No,” which meant only that he would strongly oppose everything they wanted to impose on America. Their badly disguised loathing of Helms, well-expressed over the decades, only endeared him to conservatives all the more. Jesse Helms relished that opposition. In 1990, the media declared him politically dead, his re-election an utter impossibility. On election night, a thousand cheering supporters were made to wait before their man finally emerged to declare victory, 20 minutes late. He opened his remarks by apologizing for his tardiness. “Ah was up in mah room,” he explained, “ah had to watch the grievin’ face of Dan Rathuh when he had to say we’d won agin.” The crowd went wild. When Helms announced his retirement from the Senate in 2001, the media elite made their own distaste very clear. “He was so wonderfully odious,” declared top Newsweek editor Evan Thomas. “He was very comforting to the east coast media establishment to know that there was an evil guy out there that you could really fear.” Thomas doesn’t feel the need ever to express hatred of the Soviets. He didn’t fear or hate the Maoists. He didn’t fear or hate a Holocaust-denying Islamofascist like Ahmadinejad. He feared and hated an American patriot. Their loathing was so acute they even called him a dictator and a terrorist. When Helms held up President Clinton’s nomination of soft-on-drugs Republican William Weld as Ambassador to Mexico in 1997, ABC’s Sam Donaldson said “beneath that courtliness beats the heart of a dictator.” George Stephanopoulos added: “Or a terrorist.” NBC also decried his “dictatorial tactics” in delaying a confirmation hearing for Weld – something Democrats have done routinely throughout the Bush years without any of these media slurs. Civility demands that when a major political figure dies, journalists (and others, too) should summon their respects, acknowledge the importance of this national figure, and perhaps even concede that the intentions of his public service were good. Not so with Jesse Helms. The Washington Post stressed Helms “rode his divisiveness to victory.” The New York Times obituary threw punches, describing him as the senator “whose courtly manner and mossy drawl barely masked a hard-edged conservatism that opposed civil rights, gay rights, foreign aid and modern art.” The networks were no better. NBC’s Lester Holt blatantly copied the Times: “He staked out firm positions against everything from communism and foreign aid to civil rights and modern art.” NBC reporter Martin Savidge called Helms an “ultra-rightist.” But when ultra-leftist Sen. Howard Metzenbaum died in March, NBC found no time for a label (or even a political party). They sweetly praised “the classic American success story” of a man who “always fought for the little guy, taking on the oil and insurance industries” as he “stuck to his populist principles.” Perhaps unsurprisingly, liberals on the Internet made these old-media critiques look sedate. They didn’t see any need to observe any kind of civility, letting their rage and ill will erupt like a spewing volcano. The blog Wonkette featured the headline “See You In Hell: Jesse Helms Finally Dead.” They cheered: “Jesse Helms was apparently still alive, and now he’s dead, hooray! He was a sour troll and a bigot, and it’s a testament to every rotten thing about this country that for a quarter century, he was one of the most powerful people in American politics.” Wonkette linked to Ken Layne on America Online’s Political Machine blog, whose headline was “Jesse Helms, American Garbage.” Layne said Helms died “25 years too late,” and he was “a mean little troll whose heart was so wrecked by wickedness that doctors had to patch it up with coronary valves from a pig.” The gossip site Gawker said being nice to Helms would be unthinkable, akin to saying “Hitler was kind to animals.” Leftist blogger Phil Nelson summed it up for mean-spirited liberals with his headline: “Jesse Helms Is Finally Dead. Let’s Have a Cookout.” You wouldn’t have this kind of “luck” searching around the Web looking for high-profile conservative bloggers cheering Howard Metzenbaum’s death and describing him as evil and destined for Hell. Go ahead, liberals: look. At a moment like this, when friends and family and allies of Senator Helms mourn, it’s quite clear that liberals should not suggest in public that they are somehow losing to conservatives in a contest to demonstrate who has more capacity to display callous, middle-finger meanness and breathtaking insensitivity.






Most RecentMost Recommended Comments (16)
at 14:40 on July 8th, 2008
Yes, Robert Byrd was a member of the KKK, but at least Democrats have the heart to scorn him for being racist. The Conservative movement degrades itself by worshiping Jesse Helms.
at 15:01 on July 8th, 2008
Scorn? By elevating him.
at 15:43 on July 8th, 2008
Jesse Helms was indeed a racist. Among the quotes included here:
"I've been portrayed as a caveman by some. That's not true. I'm a conservative progressive, and that means I think all men are equal, be they slants, beaners or niggers." (1985)at 15:47 on July 8th, 2008
Yes, I would say that's racist!
at 05:03 on July 9th, 2008
Oh. My. Life.
at 05:34 on July 9th, 2008
The Congress and Senate is chock full of racists and haters. He helped my people even if he considered me a "spic" I don't care. There are many who consider themselves humanitarians who did nothing but cheer for Castro... Many of those were in Harlem..
at 16:04 on July 8th, 2008
Can prominent Conservatives not just denounce Helms's racism? I'm open to the possibility that he did some praiseworthy work as a legislator (Mpress, you mention his efforts to help Cuban refugees, for instance), but until people can openly address his racism, I'm reluctant to see him in positive light.
at 05:13 on July 9th, 2008
What is this obsession with pointing out racist after REV. Wrights little show not too many here complained. Some people need to stop lecturing others on how they should react to people. He could have hated green people for all Cubans cared, They were fighting for their lives. After this primary with the racism and sexism and the pastor hate fest I think we know were the hate and racism is. At the same time you have those pointing fingers an say nothing about Obamas Church of Hate..
at 05:30 on July 9th, 2008
Yourself and a majority of posters excluded of course.
I love the "victim" posturing of the far right.
[chuckle]
at 05:36 on July 9th, 2008
Yes of course the left owns the victims.
at 05:43 on July 9th, 2008
There you go again.
Priceless!
[chuckle]
at 06:06 on July 9th, 2008
mpress, I like this story. It's good stuff.
at 06:12 on July 9th, 2008
mpress, I like this story. It's good stuff. So let me get this straight, Robert Byrd= Great Guy and Jesse Helms=Racist. Let's take a minute and consider that just the argument that one was more acceptable then the other can only be made by a racist. Funny how party lines will bring out the true racist in all of us. HOPE everyone has a great day getting along!
at 06:39 on July 9th, 2008
Urbano, we must have cross-posted. Those who hate Helms but uplift Wright and Farrakhan have a ticket on the hypocrisy bus, too. ;}
Apparently, it's OK to be racist as long as you're not Caucasian. As long as you can sing out "oppression! I've been oppressed. you won't believe what happened to my family 200 years ago!" racism is in your toolchest to be thunked around as you choose, to the sound of applause.
Years ago I read a really good book about basically, getting along in life and the ways people act negatively that affect their lives and relationships. And I wish I could remember its name, maybe I will later.
But one of its concepts revolved around green stamps and brown stamps. For those who were born after the "green stamps" era, let me explain. Many businesses participated in the S & H green stamps program. My mother patiently saved up the books of little stamps given when you made purchases. When you had enough books of green stamps, you could go to this warehouse and buy stuff with them.
Come to think of it, it's like bonus points with credit cards today! ;}
The book's author used that for another concept: brown stamps. Green stamps were bonuses you saved up and used to get good things. Brown stamps were grievances you stored up. Your sister-in-law was snotty to you 10 years ago, and if you stored up enough brown stamps about her, you were "entitled" to throw back your grievance from back then at her now.
Your spouse did this, this, or this? Store it up in brown stamps, then cash those brown stamps in for nasty comments and say, an entitlement of sulking around one evening.
And the bad thing about brown stamps--unlike green stamps, they didn't expire. And they could be used over and over again.
The author basically said that people would have healthier, better lives if they threw away the brown stamps instead of hoarding them, building them up, and using them over and over.
There's a lotta "brown stamps" going around these days. Funny how so many people avoid the relative who does nothing but complain, and in essence haul out those big bulging trunks filled with big bulging books of brown stamps, but when someone converts their brown stamps into political grievances, they're applauded. Same thing.
Hang out with green stamps people, whatever color their skin may be. Save green stamps, the good things, and share 'em freely. Focus on building the green stamps books in your life, and run like heck from those dealing out brown stamps and trying to force everyone around to accept those brown stamps, and the resulting entitlement to spread bad stuff around, as the "normal" way of life.
at 06:36 on July 9th, 2008
Thanks for all the flags I knew it would be dangerous. Now they can accuse me of being racist like if I care.
at 07:36 on July 10th, 2008
Not surprising a democrat was an Imperial Wizard of the KKK. The Democrats also tried to stop the Republicans from freeing the slaves. When that failed, they eventually came up with affirmative action and welfare programs.