Jesse Helms

From AtlanticBlog:

Jesse Helms And What It Says About The Left

Something about the obituaries for Jesse Helms caught my attention. The AP piece, by Whitney Woodward, would have been carried by scores of papers. It has this line:

He used the posts to protect his state's tobacco growers and other farmers, and placed his stamp on foreign policy with a strident opposition to Communism.

Can you imagine a newspaper describing as "strident" a politician's opposition to fascism, racism, or Nazism. But object to a system that has murdered and enslaved tens of millions, and he gets called "strident". Next time a lefty says it a smear to say the left is soft on communist murder, remind him.

Comments

[Buce]

As a conservative, which makes you prouder of Helms: his racism, his pillaging of the treasury in behalf of big tobacco, or his campaign to sabotage Reagan's efforts at reconciliation with Gorbachev?

[Tom McMahon]

Probably Helms' ability to infuriate The Left, even in death.

[Nick]

Would you prefer they quote what he said in his 1950 Senate Campaign Ad?

"White people, wake up before it is too late. Do you want Negroes working beside you, your wife and your daughters, in your mills and factories? Frank Graham favors mingling of the races."

I'd say that obit was being rather nice not to mention his outright racism and bigotry. That shouldn't just infuriate the left... it should infuriate everyone.

[John Foust]

It's much easier to be strident about the commies in other countries than the racism in your own.

[Dave M]

Not for everyone.

[Tom McMahon]

1950???