Jesse Helms dead at 86

The long term former senator from NC Jesse Helms has passed. I have my own feeling about this but I will let someone else do the honors. Lets just say I am glad its the 4th of July and fireworks are part of the day's activities...

Ding dong the dick is dead!
cigarbabe

Well,my Friend And I R Actually Celebratig W A Big Bash ,your All Invited Cum Over!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

He was a lunatic!

That's odd-I thought he was dead and quite a while back.

Come to think of it, in many ways he was.

So. Senator No is d-e-a-d. I'm nearly speechless, I wonder how Weld and Castro are reacting to this.


In closing, Jesse Helms will be missed (not necessarily by me though). Sleep peacefully Mr.Helms, you angered many; yet stood your ground-maybe that'll be helpful in your new locale.

This reminds me of something I heard about the Late Lady Bird Johnson replying to someone mentioning that LBJ was looking down on them from heaven. She said something like, "Oh, you think he's there?" I do hope he made his peace.

Alright, Naughty, I'll say it for you (and I hope I get it right):

I feel for his family and friends in their time of grief. I won't celebrate the death of the man, but I will celebrate the death of his politics.

(Hmm, funny... I said almost exactly the same thing when Ronnie Reagan bit the dust.)

I hadn't heard, but, and I mean this in the best possible sense, it couldn't happen to a nicer guy.

(Good one, Sugarbabe )

i suspect he did more good than harm...but his long tenure as senator was way too long...term limits are needed at every level of government..new blood in politics keep them all honest

That was very gracious. I too felt the same way at the passing of the "Great Prevaricator".

86 Jesse Helms.


(restaurant code for "we are out of")

Well, that's probably a matter of perspective. I'm guessing (your profile notwithstanding) that you are neither a homosexual nor a Negro. His politics were unsettlingly "klannish."

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.

I dont know about that. He may have said it with his lips, but he told the truth with his voting record. He was singularly one of the major reasons that the National Museum of African American History (Smithsonian) was not legislated until very recently. This museum has been promised to African Americans since after the Civil War. Ironicall,y it was Republican Brownback along with John Lewis who finally pushed it through. President Bush made sure that it received the last spot on the Mall right underneath the Washington Monument by stating that any other site would be an insult to African Americans and then gave a sizeable contribution of his own to start it off.

One reason the site was chosen was because surrounding what is now the National Mall were where the slave markets of the area were located during the Ante Bellum period not to mention that many of the original buildings of the Smithsonian were built at least partially by slave labor.

It is also not a coincidence that the Native American Museum resides right under the Capitol building with the eternal Native American looking down upon it. Nor is it coincidence that the African American museum will reside at the base of the memorial of the slave owning founding father ,George Washington .

Senator Helms earned the title "Senator No" because of his relentless and unabashed opposition to anything related to civil rights minorities. On the rare occassion he may have acquiesed it was under duress. So, may you rest in peace, sir...