Quote:
Originally Posted by DC_DEEP  *snip*
Naughty, am I confusing him with someone else, or did he recant a lot of his youthful bigotry? Now that I think about it, haven't a lot of politicians with his philosophical history recanted their youthful ideology in their later years? |
The question was aimed at someone else, but I'll jump in. You may be thinking about Strom Thurmond and/or Robert Byrd, both of whom started out as thundering racists and later (at least in public) mended their ways.
It would be unseemly for me to rejoice at anyone's death, so I've nothing bad to say about Helms. By all accounts he was a nice guy, and I'm sure he did what he thought was right. But he did a lot of damage that has outlived him, and will take years to undo if we ever get around to it. I was a North Carolina resident when Helms pulled a lot of the worst of his shenanigans, and my relief when he left political life was immense.
It's interesting that he's died on the same day as John Adams and Thomas Jefferson.