Jesse Helms dead

Good fucking riddance.

Conservatives admired him for his opposition to abortion and what he called “indecent art,” while liberals accused him of using race as a wedge issue to defeat black opponents.

Helms opposed civil rights and a holiday honoring the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. He was one of a small number of senators who opposed extending the Voting Rights Act in 1982, eventually giving up a filibuster when then-Majority Leader Sen. Howard Baker, a Tennessee Republican, said the Senate would not take up any other business until it acted on the extension.

Helms also opposed letting niggers vote or queers breathe, which is what really endeared him to conservatives. He represented the basest and meanest instincts in American politics, which made him a perfect embodiment of Republican politics that last couple of decades. There was a time when having voted against the Voting Rights Act would have branded a politician as a dangerous kook; now, however, he’s a venerated conservative:

“Today we lost a senator whose stature in Congress had few equals,” said Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Senate’s Republican leader. “Sen. Jesse Helms was a leading voice and courageous champion for the many causes he believed in.”

No, we lost a hateful bigot and demagogue who was committed to preserving racial divides and inequality. And a conservative icon.

MORE: Reactions to Helms’s long overdue demise.

Patterico is upset about insufficient respect being paid to a racist, homophobic hate-monger, to the point of mental incontinence — claiming TBogg hearts terrorists. Only a truly vapid asshole could connect those two thoughts.

American Power is similarly upset — because “common decency” demands we pretend that Helms wasn’t a vile specimen of humanity. Perhaps if Helms had exhibited a bit of common decency towards those targeted by his prejudices, he’d have a point.

And last (and possibly least) President 23% mis-remembers Jesse (”The University of Negroes and Communists” . . . “They should ask their parents if it would be all right for their son or daughter to marry a Negro” . . . “The New York Times and Washington Post are both infested with homosexuals themselves. Just about every person down there is a homosexual or lesbian.” . . . “Homosexuals are weak, morally sick wretches.”) Helms as: “a kind, decent and humble man and a passionate defender of what he called ‘the Miracle of America” [ed: unless you happened to be a nigger or a queer] and a “great patriot.”