I’m not sure any staffer at CSTB can really get behind a full-on “Jesse Helms RIP” headline, but the 86-year old former Senator from North Carolina died early this morning, offering another reason for freedom-loving Americans who don’t necessarily think it’s cool to build a career on appeals to bigotry and an irrational unwillingness to compromise to blow off a couple of roman candles/fingers tonight.
My friend Dan, who once interned for Sen. Paul Wellstone in DC, once wound up getting buttonholed by Helms on the weird secret Congressional subway that connects the Capitol Building and the Congressional Office Buildings. He expected Helms to be some sort of evil Rumplestiltskin-with-an-accent type, and instead found the Senator — maybe not surprisingly — courtly, pleasant, extremely charming and full of all kinds of did-you-know arcana about the Congressional subway and Congress in general. Of course, Dan wasn’t running for re-election against Mr. Helms, isn’t a homosexual or a Democratic judicial nominee or a minority. So, you know, of course.
Anyway, goodbye to one of the last true sons of bitches in American public life.
I don’t know if it at all helps anyone appreciate him around here, but Jesse was also a big U2 fan.
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1187308,00.html
Ben
Jesse: Well, hello there, Strom.
Strom: What?
Jesse: I say hello there, Strom!
Strom: Oh, Jesse. When’d you get here?
Jesse: What?
Strom: Damn nigra, turn that racket down. I said when’d you get here?
Jesse: Just today. I’ll tell you, haven’t been in a nightclub in I don’t know how long.
Strom: What?
Jesse: Say, when’s this Hendrix guy gonna finish so we can get outta here?
Strom: Ain’t no doors, Jesse.
Rest in hell you white motherfucker.
The grass is greener, the sun is warmer, the birds sing sweeter tunes.
The fucker should have been aborted 86 years ago..