Retirement seems to be one of those events in life that causes observers to forget — or at a minimum, excuse — every awful thing a person did professionally. In that respect, retirement is similar to death.
But of all the people to be rehabilitated, Jesse Helms has to be the least deserving. And yet, there was Ralph Hallow writing for The Washington Times, making Helms out to be a man who set a high ethical standard.
Jesse Helms says it is presumptuous to acknowledge that he was what admirers say he was: the conscience of conservatives in the Senate for 30 years.
“I would never have presumed to take on the role of ‘conscience,’ ” the North Carolina Republican says.
But he did just that, bucking Democratic and Republican administrations, blocking treaties and arms agreements, presidential appointments and domestic legislation whenever he thought they jeopardized limited government, national defense or civilized standards of behavior.
As a rule, the words “Jesse Helms” and “conscience” should not appear in the same sentence, unless joined by the phrase “he served despite not having one.”
Four years ago, David Broder hinted that this was coming. He noted in 2001 that the “reporting on [Helms’] retirement was circumspect to the point of pussyfooting.” To his credit, Broder set the record straight, calling Helms “the last prominent unabashed white racist politician in this country.”
What is unique about Helms — and from my viewpoint, unforgivable — is his willingness to pick at the scab of the great wound of American history, the legacy of slavery and segregation, and to inflame racial resentment against African Americans.
Many of the accounts of Helms’s retirement linked him with another prospective retiree, Sen. Strom Thurmond of South Carolina. Both these Senate veterans switched from the Democratic to the Republican Party when the Democrats began pressing for civil rights legislation in the 1960s. But there is a great difference between them. Thurmond, who holds the record for the longest anti-civil rights filibuster, accepted change. For three decades he has treated African Americans and black institutions as respectfully as he treats all his other constituents.
To the best of my knowledge, Helms has never done what the late George Wallace did well before his death — recant and apologize for his use of racial issues. And that use was blatant.
Just four years later, the Washington Times has labeled Helms “the conscience of conservatives in the Senate for 30 years.” I’m not sure which that speaks worse of, Senate conservatives or the Washington Times.