R.I.P Jesse Helms

[Boon Mee]

Jesse Helms was certainly no 'spineless whimp' as so many of those political hacks are these days in Washington. Love him or hate him, he was a giant figure on the political landscape.



Former N.C. Senator and conservative firebrand Jesse Helms dies on Independence Day. He was 86. :: WRAL.com

[Jet Gorgon]

RIP, Senator Helms. Feisty ole bugger with oodles of southern charm, wasn't he? Can't blame a guy for sticking to his convictions tho.
I like this quote:
"Jesse Helms was the kindest, most infuriating, politest, most aggravating and nicest politician I had to deal with in the United States Senate," former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright said in a 2001 interview.

[AntRobertson]

Interesting character. Jesse Helms on:

Blacks - "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";

HIV/AIDS - "There is not one single case of AIDS in this country that cannot be traced in origin to sodomy" (Helms was opposed to federal financing of HIV research)

Had close ties/friendships to mass murderer Roberto D'Aubuisson and segregationist Beverly Lake Sr.

Yep, hell of a guy.

[Boon Mee]

^
Well, he was right about the Aids thing.
Unless, of course, one got it thru a blood transfusion.

[barbaro]

Helms was not the sharpest tool in the shed, that's for sure. A simple man in a complicated world. I do remember that commercial in 1990.

The 1990 election was very close. An advertisement shortly before the election showed a white arm and hand with a piece of paper (a rejection letter from a company.)

The voice said to paraphrase: 'you wanted that job. You were qualified for it, but you didn't get it. It went to someone else.'

And then the white hand crumples up the paper into a ball.

Great commercial.

Here's the commercial. I found it on Youtube. Actuall there is more to the commercial than my paraphrasing. (My memory has faded after 18 years.)

[obsidian]

piss on the ignorant racist dinosaur.

[Sir Burr]

He was an out and out racist and bigot.
Glad he's gone so that more moral politicians don't have to compromise their convictions just to get his support.

[obsidian]

^
Well, he was right about the Aids thing.
Unless, of course, one got it thru a blood transfusion.

(or iv drug use. or you were born with the virus, or a needle stick, or you got it from your spouse, ..... )

so then he was quite wrong, wasnt he boon me?

[barbaro]

Jesse Helms, like I said before, was not the sharpest tool in the shed. He wouldn't be electable in most other states (he was from North Carolina). NC, and other states have changed in recent years, and candidates like Helms are politicians of the past, IMO.

[Terry SG]

As a proud North Carolinian, I hope that he is now burning in the same Hell that he thought homosexuals would burn.

[lysander]

Couldn't have happened to a more deserving man.

[Norton]

I hope that he is now burning in the same Hell that he thought homosexuals would burn.

Too good for him. With all the homosexuals he predicted would burn in hell more likely he is experiencing first hand how correct he was on how HIV is transmitted.