Helms wore bigotry as badge of pride
Published: Thursday, July 17, 2008 at 4:30 a.m.
Last Modified: Wednesday, July 16, 2008 at 8:56 p.m.
But it would be dishonest to pretend that Sen. Jesse Helms was anything other than a caricature of a Southern bigot. Same goes for his evil twin, the late Sen. Strom Thurman.
Helms was a man who claimed that this country needed a "spiritual revival," while freely and openly feeding on fear.
He was a shining example of not only the underside of this country, but of human nature in general.
Hateful, homophobic and racist, Helms was so stewed in the self-righteous juices of his own rhetoric that he was immune to its bad smell. He was like that dog in the Aesop fable; the one that was so unruly that he was given a bell as a badge of shame.
In his ignorance, the dog mistook the bell as a symbol of pride. Such was Helms when he heard himself being described as a bigot. Charles Merrill
Palm Springs, Calif.
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