Helms Kicks The Bucket

By fitsnews • on July 5, 2008

FORMER NORTH CAROLINA SENATOR DEAD AT EIGHTY-SIX

FITSNews - July 5, 2008 - For three decades, former North Carolina Sen. Jesse Helms held down the right flank of the United States Senate, earning himself an enduring legacy as the “arch-conservative’s arch-conservative.”  It wasn’t always pretty, even after his George Wallace-style “softening” later in life, but here’s what Wall Street Journal columnist John Fund had to say this morning on the right-wing icon’s passing:

If Ronald Reagan was the sunny and optimistic face of modern conservatism, the uncompromisingly defiant exemplar of it was Jesse Helms, who died yesterday at age 86.

While Reagan has undergone a revisionist makeover by many historians who now recognize his accomplishments, Helms is still the conservative liberals most love to hate. But while they still disdain his views, many liberal groups are now using their own forms of the rhetorical and campaign techniques that Helms honed to perfection.

Until the strategy outdated him, Helms path to power was all about making angry white males even angrier by blaming their lot in life on blacks and liberals.  It worked like a charm in North Carolina, but it earned him the hatred of the left-wing establishment in the process.

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Comments

By Guero on July 5th, 2008 at 3:36 pm

There is evil in the world and one of it’s faces was Jesse Helms. Softening, my arse, he was an unrepentant white supremacist to the end. RIP, but he certainly doesn’t deserve to.

By So on July 5th, 2008 at 4:12 pm

He doesn’t even get an RIP in my book, he gets an emphatic GR: Good Riddance!

By Daniel Gleason on July 5th, 2008 at 5:11 pm

What the heck is going on with this blog? You claim to be a conservative? You are literally repeating liberal talking points. They had to brand Jesse Helms a “racist” in order to shut down his conservatism. There was no greater champion in the Senate of the constitution, smaller government, less spending, the rights of the unborn, etc. Things that Will Folks claims to stand for. I just don’t understand why you make it a habit to attack the conservative giants who’s pillars you stand on. They are the reason you have any success today; without them there would be no conservative movement, and certain no alternative media for you to thrive in. What the heck is going on with you. Jesse Helms was not a racist, and you are a fool (at best) for repeating this charge. What a shame.

By 867-5309 on July 5th, 2008 at 7:59 pm

One of my favorite political bumper stickers from my youth:

“Vote Against Hate. Vote Against Helms.”

Irony anyone?

By Likeabadpenny on July 5th, 2008 at 10:12 pm

An ever better bumper sticker said

Helms-Thurmond for President! 200 years of experience CANT be wrong!

Sen. Helms was a HERO!

By Guero on July 6th, 2008 at 6:35 am

Sorry, Danny Boy, Jesse’s own words betray your feeble attempt at revisionism. You do speak the truth that Jesse was a conservative pillar. Without his overt appeals to racism, the Repugnant Party would still be a minority. Your party of anti-Semitism (Bill Buckley, Pat Buchanan, Richard Nixon, and Billy Graham), white supremacy (too many to list but Strom needs to be included ), whore hopping (again, too many to list, but David Vitter is a good start along with Strom), gambling-addicted scolds like Bill Bennett, and let’s not forget draft dodging chicken hawks like Dick Cheney, is slowly shrinking into the regional party it always should have been. Wow, and I didn’t even get to Larry Craig…

By 10% on July 6th, 2008 at 10:35 am

#1 & #7—Quero…Thanks for acknowledging many of the fine Americans who helped shape this great country. Sadly its idiots like you and the people you vote for that are destroying their great work.

By From the land where winners get trophies on July 6th, 2008 at 10:23 pm

Guero,
I am with you. But, the old school prefers Jeff, or just plain Gringo.

8.10%,
Bahhahahahaha. Not one piece of significant legislation was passed by any of them but Nixon. And Nixon, by illegally spying on Watergate was the biggest threat to democracry in the 20th century. I guess your next reflection will be the prose in Mein Kamph as a child needing to heal.

By From the land where winners get trophies on July 6th, 2008 at 10:26 pm

PS: The Jesse pic looks like he would share an office with Senator Craig.

By CL on July 7th, 2008 at 8:29 am

#7,

You treat any fault of a conservative leader as an indictment of the entire movement. Of course, you would never extend that same logic to liberals (since we all know liberals walk with the angels). This shows only your intellectual ignorance and lack of class (taking delight in the death of Sen. Helms). I think Ted Kennedy has done enormous damage to this country and our Senate, yet I would never take delight in his disease. I pray that he recovers and leads a long life (hopefully in retirement). I also pray that you overcome your hatred and bigotry.

I also cannot let stand the idea that liberals would win a “sin contest”:

Whore hopping - JFK(heck, pretty much all the Kennedys), WJC, Gary Hart, Barney Frank (a male prostitution ring was being run out of his apartment for goodness sakes)

Racism - Robert Byrd (I forget, was he grand dragon or grand kleagle), Woodrow Wilson, FDR, Margaret Sanger (who not only hated minorities, but wanted them sterilized)

As for white supremacy, I seem to recall from history class that it was the Democrats who were fighting to keep slavery and implemented Jim Crow.

By Crooner on July 7th, 2008 at 1:56 pm

I used to wonder how the good people of North Carolina could possibly keep sending a backward redneck racist to the US Senate. Then I moved to the Charleston area and learned about John Graham Altman.

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