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Skriven 2008-07-21 22:04:00 av TIM RICHARDSON (1:123/140)
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THE NEW YORK TIMES VS. HELMS, PART 529,876
July 9, 2008


Last Friday, on the Fourth of July, the great patriot Jesse Helms passed away.
John Adams and Thomas Jefferson also went to their great reward on
Independence Day, so this is further proof of God.


Helms is now the second great American patriot I've always wanted to meet and
never will, at least in this lifetime. The only other one is the magnificent
Reagan aide Lyn Nofziger. (Wikipedia quote: "I sometimes lie awake at night
trying to think of something funny that Richard Nixon said.")


After a week of hundreds of Helms obituaries -- one or two of which were not
completely dishonest -- I will mention just a few items that were not
addressed or given sufficient attention.


The two most obsessively discussed topics among Senate staffers are: (1) Who
is the stupidest senator? (Sen. Barbara Boxer pulled into the lead when Sen.
Lincoln Chafee retired), and (2) which senators are beastly and which are
wonderful to their staff?


When I worked in the Senate in the '90s, the two senators famous for being
absolute princes to work for were Sen. Helms and -- it pains me to tell you
this, so you know it has to be true -- Sen. Teddy Kennedy. (He was so nice to
his staffers, he frequently offered them rides home in his car after parties.)


I never knew -- and you never knew, unless you read one of the two honest
obituaries this past week -- that in 1962 Helms and his wife "Dot" adopted a
9-year-old orphan with cerebral palsy. They already had two daughters and
Helms was 41 years old at the time. But it was Christmastime and they read
about Charlie in a newspaper. He said all he wanted for Christmas was a mother
and father.


In the 1976 North Carolina Republican primary, Helms engineered Ronald
Reagan's upset victory over Gerald Ford, the sitting president. That victory
carried Reagan to the convention and made him the front-runner in 1980. The
night Reagan won the 1980 presidential election, Helms famously uttered the
beautiful words: "God has given America one more chance."

In 1984, Helms' re-election campaign was the then-most expensive Senate race
in history. His Democratic opponent, Gov. Jim Hunt, received campaign
contributions from the usual dotty liberals: Barbra Streisand, Phil Donahue,
Marlo Thomas, Paul Newman, Woody Allen -- all, no doubt, steeped in North
Carolina politics.


Shockingly, Hunt also received a donation from Arthur Sulzberger, publisher of
the nonpartisan, totally objective, straight-down-the-middle New York Times.
Which I guess explains the nasty obituary last week.


Meanwhile, Helms received contributions mostly from America's two most
dangerous fringe groups: housewives and businessmen. His few celebrity
supporters included Gene Autry and Ellin Berlin, wife of composer Irving
Berlin, the patriotic Jewish immigrant who wrote "White Christmas" and "God
Bless America."


Other Republicans loved to run in years when Helms was up for election
because, like a Marine exposing himself to enemy fire to let his comrades
escape, all the Hollywood money would be dedicated to defeating Helms.


On election night 1984, a friend of mine was at a Republican victory party in
Michigan when suddenly a group of Hasidim broke out in cheering and dancing.


Was "Fiddler on the Roof" being made into a major motion picture? He looked up
at the mammoth TV screen. It read: "Jesse Helms Wins North Carolina."


Helms was viciously and falsely portrayed as a racist -- including in the
totally objective New York Times obituary last week. In January 1963, a decade
before Helms would run for office, he editorialized about Harvey Gantt, the
first black student to be admitted to Clemson University in South Carolina.


Helms praised Gantt to the skies, saying he had "stoutly resisted the pose of
a conquering hero" and had "turned away from the liberal press and television
networks which would glorify him." Gantt, Helms said, just wanted to be an
architect and "Clemson is the only college in South Carolina that can teach
him how to be one."


Funny how that little tidbit didn't make the Times obituary. They must have
cut it for "space."


Helms was for integration; he was simply against "movements." He would later
hire James Meredith, who was the first black to attend the University of
Mississippi -- with the assistance of federal troops. By 1989, Meredith's
views had come around to those of Helms, not the other way around.


After years of reading and studying and attending law school at Columbia
University, Meredith concluded that blacks had been better off when they
worked for themselves and not for white liberals. (Having worked for white
liberals myself, I couldn't agree more.) Meredith claimed Helms fired him as
domestic policy adviser after a year because he was too right-wing for Helms.


Which reminds me: I'll have to try to meet Meredith before the next Fourth of
July.


Liberals discount Helms' hiring of Meredith on the grounds that Meredith had
wandered off the reservation. (Blacks are allowed to have only one set of
political views.) It just shows you how stupid liberals are: Blacks don't live
on reservations; Indians do.


It's pretty much the same thing liberals are accusing B. Hussein Obama of
right now. In its July 4 editorial, the Times harangued Obama for his
diversions from the liberal line on Iraq, the domestic surveillance bill,
capital punishment and guns. I believe the editorial was titled something
like, "Get in Line, N-word."


To paraphrase Dan Quayle, to be called a racist by these people is a badge of
honor. Rest in peace, Jesse Helms: New York Times stock was recently lowered
to a notch above junk bond status.


COPYRIGHT 2008 ANN COULTER








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