The Passing of North Carolina Ex-Senator Jesse Helms A Most Fanatic Supporter of Isreal
Jesse Helms: 1921-2008 dead on the fourth of July. A five term senator spanning 30 years in Congress.
Sen. Helms' death was like a snap back to some old school reality, like being reminded of a solid, green-tinted Coke bottle in a world of diet and decaffeinated aluminum.
Jesse Helms never flip-flopped. He clearly didn't seem to care who liked him and who didn't. He wasn't always running for something else. Like Richard Nixon, he was who he was and the only thing odd at the time he ruled the right wing of the political spectrum in the US Senate was that he was never quite as old as he seemed.
He was the genuine article. As his Wikipedia bio correctly notes, he was "opposed to communism, tax increases, abortion, affirmative action, food stamps, secularism and government-funded health care." So there. None of this moderate stuff John McCain and other Republicans used to tout. And, during the 1976 Republican presidential race, he helped make Ronald Reagan the future conservative god. Helms would never have had the horror of carrying the same handbag as another senator in the tabs' "Who Wore It Best?" fashion smack down.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/bronstein/detail?&entry_id=27938
http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5gEiwoA6huf79QPRdl2XNnjTvUpvwD91PR5QO0
A visitor pauses at the casket of former North Carolina Sen. Jesse Helms as he lies in repose at Hayes-Barton Baptist Church in Raleigh, N.C., Monday, July 7, 2008. Helms, who represented North Carolina in the Senate from 1973 to 2003, died Friday. Funeral services will be held Tuesday. (AP Photo/Gerry Broome)
RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — Vice President Dick Cheney and a delegation of U.S. senators joined hundreds of other mourners who paid their respects Tuesday at the funeral of former Sen. Jesse Helms, a five-term Republican who died on the Fourth of July.
http://www.starnewsonline.com/article/20080705/article/116173262
Biographical information
NAME – Jesse Alexander Helms.
AGE – Born Oct.18, 1921 in Monroe, N.C.
EDUCATION – Monroe public schools; Wingate Junior College and Wake Forest College.
FAMILY – Wife, Dorothy Coble Helms; children Jane Knox, Nancy Grigg and Charles Helms; seven grandchildren.
CAREER – Navy, 1942-1945; city editor at The Raleigh Times; administrative assistant to Democratic Sens. Willis Smith (1951-53) and Alton Lennon (1953); executive director of the North Carolina Bankers Association from 1953-1960; executive vice president of Capitol Broadcasting Co., 1960-1972.
POLITICAL CAREER – Elected Republican senator from North Carolina in 1972; re-elected to Senate four times; in 1984, defeated then-Gov. Jim Hunt in what was then the costliest Senate race on record; served as chairman of Senate Foreign Relations and Agriculture Committees; earned nickname “Senator No” for no-compromise political style; forced roll-call votes requiring Democrats to take politically difficult votes on art he deemed pornographic, school busing, flag burning, other issues.
Sources: Official Congressional biography, bioguide.congress.gov; The Jesse Helms Center, jessehelmscenter.org.
Former Sen. Jesse Helms, who built a career along the fault lines of racial politics and battled liberals, Communists and the occasional fellow Republican during 30 conservative years in Congress, died on the Fourth of July. He was 86.
Helms died at 1:15 a.m., said the Jesse Helms Center in Wingate.
http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/h/jesse_helms/index.html?excamp=OVPOjessehelms&WT.srch=1&WT.mc_ev=click&WT.mc_id=PO-S-E-YH-NA-NA-jesse_helms
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7490397.stm
Sen. Helms' death was like a snap back to some old school reality, like being reminded of a solid, green-tinted Coke bottle in a world of diet and decaffeinated aluminum.
Jesse Helms never flip-flopped. He clearly didn't seem to care who liked him and who didn't. He wasn't always running for something else. Like Richard Nixon, he was who he was and the only thing odd at the time he ruled the right wing of the political spectrum in the US Senate was that he was never quite as old as he seemed.
He was the genuine article. As his Wikipedia bio correctly notes, he was "opposed to communism, tax increases, abortion, affirmative action, food stamps, secularism and government-funded health care." So there. None of this moderate stuff John McCain and other Republicans used to tout. And, during the 1976 Republican presidential race, he helped make Ronald Reagan the future conservative god. Helms would never have had the horror of carrying the same handbag as another senator in the tabs' "Who Wore It Best?" fashion smack down.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/bronstein/detail?&entry_id=27938
http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5gEiwoA6huf79QPRdl2XNnjTvUpvwD91PR5QO0
A visitor pauses at the casket of former North Carolina Sen. Jesse Helms as he lies in repose at Hayes-Barton Baptist Church in Raleigh, N.C., Monday, July 7, 2008. Helms, who represented North Carolina in the Senate from 1973 to 2003, died Friday. Funeral services will be held Tuesday. (AP Photo/Gerry Broome)
RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — Vice President Dick Cheney and a delegation of U.S. senators joined hundreds of other mourners who paid their respects Tuesday at the funeral of former Sen. Jesse Helms, a five-term Republican who died on the Fourth of July.
http://www.starnewsonline.com/article/20080705/article/116173262
Biographical information
NAME – Jesse Alexander Helms.
AGE – Born Oct.18, 1921 in Monroe, N.C.
EDUCATION – Monroe public schools; Wingate Junior College and Wake Forest College.
FAMILY – Wife, Dorothy Coble Helms; children Jane Knox, Nancy Grigg and Charles Helms; seven grandchildren.
CAREER – Navy, 1942-1945; city editor at The Raleigh Times; administrative assistant to Democratic Sens. Willis Smith (1951-53) and Alton Lennon (1953); executive director of the North Carolina Bankers Association from 1953-1960; executive vice president of Capitol Broadcasting Co., 1960-1972.
POLITICAL CAREER – Elected Republican senator from North Carolina in 1972; re-elected to Senate four times; in 1984, defeated then-Gov. Jim Hunt in what was then the costliest Senate race on record; served as chairman of Senate Foreign Relations and Agriculture Committees; earned nickname “Senator No” for no-compromise political style; forced roll-call votes requiring Democrats to take politically difficult votes on art he deemed pornographic, school busing, flag burning, other issues.
Sources: Official Congressional biography, bioguide.congress.gov; The Jesse Helms Center, jessehelmscenter.org.
Former Sen. Jesse Helms, who built a career along the fault lines of racial politics and battled liberals, Communists and the occasional fellow Republican during 30 conservative years in Congress, died on the Fourth of July. He was 86.
Helms died at 1:15 a.m., said the Jesse Helms Center in Wingate.
http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/h/jesse_helms/index.html?excamp=OVPOjessehelms&WT.srch=1&WT.mc_ev=click&WT.mc_id=PO-S-E-YH-NA-NA-jesse_helms
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7490397.stm
Comments