| Having at one time in my life, and being old enough then to understand what I was seeing, seen Jesse Helms frequently offering editorials on TV before he was ever elected to anything, I can tell you he was the most regressive, mean-spirited, divisive, segregationist, states-rightist, zenophobic spokesman I have ever heard. Back then, as now, code words on key issues were all that was necessary to understand who he was speaking to and what he meant. Regardless of how he may have dressed up his language, image, or following, he can never shake that image with me, he can never be rehabilitated any more than any rightwinger on this thread could accept such a thing from someone like Bill Clinton. I saw Jesse Helms show his core for years. He was a racist then. He will always be a racist to me. |
