I'm inclined to lean more towards Martin Lewis's final salute to Jesse here than I am the folks who paid tribute to the man in the ABC news story... Sen. Jesse Helms Dead at 86
Sen. Jesse Helms Dead at 86 Polarizing North Carolina Lawmaker Was Known as 'Senator No' ABC News ServicesUPDATE: 7/13/08 From the WSJ and NPR's Juan Williams, a different perspective, and one I believe is probably closer to the truth about the life and political career of Jesse Helms....The former five-term senator, Jesse Helms, died in North Carolina. He was 86.(AP/ABC News) July 4, 2008— Sen. Jesse Helms of North Carolina, an ideological firebrand with a reputation as one of the Senate's most conservative lawmakers, died early this morning of natural causes in Raleigh. He was 86. Helms was first elected to the Senate in 1972. He served five terms, the longest-servingRepublican ever from North Carolina. Called "Senator No" by some, Helms consistently argued against the United Nations, communism, government spending, welfare, arms control and foreign aid. He was pro-military, and often derisive on topics and people he opposed, including Martin Luther King Jr. and homosexuality. Of the "Senator No" moniker, Helms said: "In 1978 the Raleigh News & Observer dubbed me 'Senator No.' It wasn't meant as a compliment, but I certainly took it as one." In a statement released late this morning, Sen. Mitch McConnel of Kentucky, the Senate's minority leader and its ranking Republican, praised his former colleague as "a leading voice and courageous champion for the many causes he believed in." "We mourn his passing and extend our deepest sympathies to the extended Helms family," McConnell said. White House deputy press secretary Scott Stanzel said the country lost "a great public servant and a true patriot today." The White House is expected to release a statement from President Bush later today. Railing against the reach of government was a favorite cause for Helms, except when it came to moral issues. In those cases, Helms believed government deserved to be a player. "Big government cannot and will not solve the multitude of problems confronting our nation ... because big government is the problem," he told the North Carolina General Assembly in 1997. Helms appealed to conservative, mostly white, rural North Carolinians. Throughout his service in public office, he maintained close ties to the religious right and made several appearances on the shows of televangelists Jim Baker and Pat Robertson. In 1982, Helms fell short of pushing through measures that would have stripped the Supreme Court's jurisdiction on cases involving abortion, school prayer and school busing. He voted often to outlaw or restrict abortion rights and eliminate the use of busing for school integration. He also tried to do away with food stamps. In 1989, Helms became embroiled in a national debate on homoerotic photographs by Robert Mapplethorpe, and Andres Serrano's photograph of a crucifix in a glass of urine. Both were on display at an exhibit funded by the National Endowment for the Arts. Helms tried, without success, to get Congress to pass a bill that banned federal funding for "obscene" art. In 1990, Helms narrowly won an election against Harvey Gantt, a black Democrat and former mayor of Charlotte. A week before the election, Helms ran a television ad dubbed "White hands," which some derided as racist and others attributed to his victory in the race. The ad implies that Gantt's support of affirmative action policies was costing white voters their jobs. "The paramount thing is whether a man believes in the principles of America and whether he is willing to stand up for them, win or lose," Helms once said. Jesse Helms was born Oct. 18, 1921, in Monroe, N.C. He went to public schools and attended Wake Forest College before quitting to work briefly as a newspaper and radio journalist. In 1942, he entered the U.S. Navy and served during World War II. After the war, Helms returned to radio work, held a directorship with the North Carolina Bankers Association and then returned back to radio. In the 1960s, he developed a reputation as an outspoken critic of what he believed was unfair coverage of the South, particularly concerning the struggle for civil rights. He used his position with the radio station as a forum to air his views on national and international issues. He became an outspoken critic of federal policies, including welfare, and often denounced judicial decisions in which he considered the punishment not suitable enough for the crime. In 1972, Helms ran for the Senate and won by a large margin. He quickly established himself as one of the party's more solid conservatives and continued to win re-election. He did not enjoy widespread support in Congress, in part because of his tendency to overstep boundaries when speaking out on a subject. He was widely derided in 1994 when he called President Clinton an "incompetent commander" of the nation's armed forces. He also suggested that because of a disgruntled electorate, the president might need a bodyguard with him on visits to North Carolina. Yet Helms managed to have an impact in U.S. foreign affairs, largely through his six-year chairmanship in the 1990s of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Helms opposed most internationalis t efforts. "Senator Helms not only speaks for the tens of millions of Americans who don't trust the foreign-policy establishment, he also opens the door to a true national consensus behind important foreign-policy goals," Walter Russell Mead, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, wrote in The New York Times. As a staunch anti-Communist and opponent of Cuban President Fidel Castro, Helms sponsored the Helms-Burton Act in 1996, which extended the U.S. embargo of Cuba. Helms also served on the Senate Agriculture Committee and on the Senate Rules and Administration Committee. Helms did not seek re-election in 2002, citing multiple health problems, including bouts with heart disease and prostate cancer. Helms married the former Dorothy Jane Coble. They had three children and seven grandchildren. ABC News' Russell Goldman contributed to this report. Martin Lewis: Jesse Helms: Yankee Doodle Jesse
He's a Yankee Doodle Jesse A Yankee Doodle do or die A real live nephew of the Ku Klux Klan Died on the Fourth of July... "I hope what future generations learn about me will be based on the truth and not the deliberate inaccuracies those who disagreed with me took such delight in repeating." - Jesse Helms to the Associated Press in 2005. Fair enough Jesse. I'll let you speak for yourself..."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?" (1950)"The Negro cannot count forever on the kind of restraint that's thus far left him free to clog the streets, disrupt traffic, and interfere with other men's rights." (1963)"Crime rates and irresponsibility among Negroes are a fact of life which must be faced." (1981)"The University of North Carolina (UNC)... the University of Negroes and Communists..." (1995)"Blacks, gays and lesbians are responsible for the proliferation of AIDS""There is not one single case of AIDS in this country that cannot be traced in origin to sodomy." (1988)"All Latins are volatile people." (1986)"The New York Times and Washington Post are both infested with homosexuals themselves. Just about every person down there is a homosexual or lesbian.""The government should spend less money on people with AIDS because they got sick as a result of deliberate, disgusting, revolting conduct." (1995)"Mr. Clinton better watch out if he comes down here [Fort Bragg]. He'd better have a bodyguard. " (1994)"What is really at stake is whether or not America will allow the cultural high ground in this nation to sink slowly into an abyss of slime to placate people who clearly seek or are willing to destroy the Judaic-Christian foundations of this republic." (1990)"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)"I have tried at every point to seek God's wisdom on the decisions I made, and I made it my business to speak up on behalf of the things God tells us are important to Him."Yankee Pronunciation: \ˈyaŋ-kē\ Function: noun Etymology: origin unknown Date: 1758 1 a: a native or inhabitant of New England 1 b: a native or inhabitant of the northern United States 2: a native or inhabitant of the United States
| OPINION | ||
Jesse Helms Was No Hero
In death, Sen. Jesse Helms is being honored as a conservative hero. My question is why?
Yes, the six-term senator defined right-wing political stands against communists in Cuba, Nicaragua and the former Soviet Union. Yes, he blocked international treaties that limited U.S. sovereignty. And, yes, he was masterful in his use of direct mail to stir contributions to conservative causes. But "Senator No" also created an angry, scolding, close-minded face for the modern GOP, exactly opposite to the sunny optimism of Ronald Reagan.
Helms did not invite people into the party; to the contrary, he seemed to delight in excluding people and played on the anxieties of rural, older Southern whites. But if the modern Republican Party is to thrive it has to get out the welcome mat for young people, specifically the fastest growing segments of the U.S. population: Hispanics and Asians, as well as younger blacks who are more likely than their elders to be politically independent.
Today's GOP needs white men with college degrees and suburban white women with education, careers and children. Helms was never comfortable with this crowd; his worldview grew out of the experiences of a Depression-era young, white man from North Carolina. And he was too comfortable with the ordered world of racial segregation he knew as a child.
To be sure, for Helms the essence of North Carolina values was keeping taxes low, and fighting against big government. That is a great message. It won him a base of support.
But that base was rural working-class voters and white suburban male voters. He rallied this base by letting everyone know he disliked Chapel Hill intellectuals -- the kind of people who protested for equal rights for blacks and challenged U.S. involvement in Vietnam. He showed no compassion for gays coming out of the closet and women who wanted abortion rights; instead choosing to make them demons threatening family values. And he made blunt use of racial politics.
The most infamous example was in his 1990 Senate campaign against Harvey Gantt, the former mayor of Charlotte and a black man. Helms ran an ad that showed white hands crumpling a rejection letter while a voice announced: "You needed that job. And you were best qualified. But they had to give it to a minority."
He also played the race card in 1984, in his campaign against Jim Hunt, the former governor and a white centrist in Southern politics. He ran an ad picturing Mr. Hunt with liberal, black leader Jesse Jackson. Helms also proudly reminded voters that he tried, with a 16-day filibuster, to stop the U.S. Senate from approving a federal holiday to honor black civil-rights leader, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
Yet, when I, a black writer, asked Helms for an interview in the middle of his 1990 campaign against Gantt, he agreed to it. It took several weeks for him to see me. And the very first thing he asked me was whether I was "going to make a race thing out of this." I told him race had to be a part of the story, which I was writing for the Washington Post, but I did not intend to make it the whole story because I wanted to get to know him.
Helms, a former journalist, walked over to the chair I was sitting in at his Raleigh office, and said his biggest concern was that people "spread all sorts of stories" about him and he wanted me to let him know about any accusations I heard about him.
Well, my reporting found the gay community in a fury about his long opposition to government funding for research on AIDS. There was his stand against the Americans with Disabilities Act, the anger in the arts community over his efforts to deny government funding to supporters of work he considered homoerotic or anti-Christian.
When I went back to Helms with these reports he said they were true but lacked his side of the story. He said research indicated that rape victims who went to the hospital had a procedure to prevent pregnancy. Helms said he could not believe that a woman who had been raped would not take such steps.
He also explained to me that he believed art should strengthen love and family and God. Pictures of nude gay men embracing or a crucifix in urine did not fit his understanding of real art. As for his opposition to AIDS research, Helms said his initial attitude about the disease was that it only afflicted homosexuals, and he felt their sexual behavior was the cause of the problem. He was opposed to giving rights to the disabled under the ADA, the senator said, because it was evidence of ever expanding big government interfering in business.
Helms also had an answer to charges that he played racial politics. Helms told me that he had never spoken before the NAACP in North Carolina simply because the group always endorsed Democrats so there was no political benefit to addressing their convention. But he added he regularly met with black constituents who needed individual help from their home-state senator. His opposition to affirmative action, he explained, was a matter of his belief that the best qualified people should always get the job. He did not have much to say about his opposition to the King holiday, except that he was suspicious of people who stirred up racial protests.
This was all done with a sly wink. Helms was smart enough to know he was dancing around with rationalization
Republican leaders in the Tar Heel State and nationally would be wise to tip their hats to Jesse Helms as a man of the distant past who lived long beyond his political era. But the greatest wisdom will be to resist any temptation to make a hero out of him. The demographic shifts sweeping America mean that the key to building a successful 21st-century GOP will be a decisive turn away from Helms's use of the politics of exclusion.
Mr. Williams is a political analyst for National Public Radio and Fox News.
See all of today's editorials and op-eds, plus video commentary, on Opinion Journal.
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