While I can appreciate a balanced view of Senator Helms' long career, I must reject your tidying up a clear record of pronounced, relentless racism and intolerance. America needs true statesman whose principles are founded on equality and mutual respect of all citizens. I, for one, will not miss Senator Helms' strident and caustic voice.

Unfortunately, the principles that Senator Helms stood up for were based on deeply flawed perceptions of what America means and what Christ lived, taught, and died for.

Helms was also very often man of the wrong. I don't mind the extinction of the old, lumbering political dinosaurs.

As someone that actually lives in North Carolina, the majority of people here now have disavowed Jesse Helms racist stances.

The editorial fails to mention Helms' switching to the Republican party because of one issue: Civil Rights for blacks. He actively opposed racial equality and embraced the outdated segregationist policies.

That Helms is being considered a poster boy for the Republican party would likely have Lincoln rolling over in his grave.

There was also no mention of his race baiting to win elections. When running a tight race in 1990 against the former mayor of Charlotte, Harvey Gantt (who was black) Helms released the overtly racist "black hands" ad in the final weeks of the campaign.

I suppose that is all fine for the Deseret News editorial staff because they never had to deal with the issue of race in Utah like we have here in the South.

Unlike Strom Thurmond from South Carolina, Helms never acknowledged he was wrong for his opposition to civil rights.

Helms was a bigot through and through, and no amount of whitewash will change that fact.

Still, R.I.P. I only regret that Senator Helms didn't live long enough to see our first black President be inaugurated next January.

"But for a legacy, Helms will forever be remembered as a man who put his principles above all else — even practical concerns."

I personally think he will be remembered for other, less positive things. But time will tell.

Your editorial is foolish. The man was evil. A pure bigot who hated blacks and tried very hard to make their lives as miserable as he could. A pure southern racist.

Shame on you for white-coating the man's history and neglecting to write about what he really was: a man filled with hate for people who weren't white.

Helms, pure and simple, was a very bad man.

To all you posters who follow the leftist libby line (if you aren't a leftist you have to be a racist): Helms was a great American. Helms did not hate blacks. He supported Clarence Thomas for the Supreme Court. Remember Thomas, the man liberals tried to do a high tech lynching on.

Fred, Thanks for your comments.

Phantom Panther, If what Fred says is true (and he is in North Carolina), I don't see how this is the "leftist libby line". Are centrists and conservatives in favor of white racism? Would they support the black hands ad? Do they believe in separate but equal? Supporting Clarence Thomas may have been admirable (or a concession to the inevitability of a black nominee). But it doesn't undo other racist acts.

Phantom Panther: So a single vote for Thomas (the only Supreme Court Justice to never ask a single question of litigants appearing before the court) proves he dosen't hate blacks?

If David Duke boted for Thomas would that remove his KKK role from his record?

It is interesting that Sean Hannity always tries to taint Senator Robert (KKK, according to Hannity) Byrd for being racist even though he has disavowed his past, supports civil rights, and has supported Obama. Does his vote for Obama forever prevent Hannity from refering to his past?

That Helms was a racist is universally accepted back here in his home state.

Is the Deseret News showing it's true colors this morning by heralding a Man who will not go down in History as anything but a racist, a bigot and an anti-gay crusader whose own granddaughter was gay.

Do all of you lefties only hate Helms because he was racist. Couldn't there be a bit of anti-Jesse feeling there because he was also anti-communist. The left didn't like him for either stand.

Freedom Fighter, I could care less about Senator Helms anti-communist anti-Castro, anti-abortion etc... stands.

As a Senator, he also was known as a man of the people. If you couldn't get the Dept of Agriculture to send you your crop subsidy check, one letter to his office and it was done. He was a good advocate for most North Carolinians, but he was a racist and it tore this state apart.

That is why he is despised, it has nothing to do with an anti-communism stance, and your suggestion of this only shows that you are interested in baiting and denigrating people who have a different view.

FreedomFighter:
Good point. He was hated mostly because he was so effective in the Senate in battling the left and its squishy stances vis a vis communist movements in the world. One thing he is remembered for is the incident when a Soviet merchant sailor jumped overboard to try to reach a Coast Guard cutter. Helms demanded that the sailor be granted asylum, but the nervous State Department orderd the sailor's return to Soviet custody. The sailor spent years in a "mental" hospital. The sailor later became an Eastern Orthodox priest, and, after the Cold War,travelled to the USA and visited Helms to thank him for standing up for freedom.

so it is it against the law now to be racist? Are white men the only ones who can be racist? Evidently although I have heard a number of blacks disparage Barack because he has a white mother. I think it's frightening the way people get shouted down and branded "racist" in America today. It's mind control and you need to beware the thought police.
And some of you posters need to remember that it was the Democrat Party was the party of segregation - not Republicans
Thank God we had men with spines like Jesse Helms to resist communism and it's primary enabling tool : political correctness aka re-education

So you despised him only for his racist views & couldn't care less about his other views. I can accept that. Why didn't you care about his other views? Were these other things not important to you?

Geez, it's fun to see the old-school John Birch types come out of the woodwork to praise the vile dinosaur that was Jesse Helms! Praise for "resisting communism" is so retro I want to put on my Motown 45 rpm records again! Helms was "a man of the people" was he? Only if you're talking about white people. And this editorial is simply a disgrace. It's like a Disney Channel look at the life of a hide-bound racist---"if we throw enough sugar on it then it won't be so nasty." Look, the guy was proud to be a racist and there is no point in pretending he was anything but a racist. Even the Deseret News sugar-coating won't change that, and it is dishonest to portray him as anything else. What's next for the editorial page? Hitler was a pretty bad guy, but he was nice to his dogs? Come on editors, have the courage to call Helms what he was, or, like Thumper's mother taught, just don't say anything at all.

Just as to be expected.
The conservatives' postings above reveal racist Helms was like a hero to these nasty right-wingers.
I guess they have not noticed their conservative/fascist ideology is being exposed daily and only supported today by the Limbaughites, White Supremists, and Skinheads.

I see the extreme right-wing is continuing their linking of a black president (possible) with communism.
These sad fools have clearly lost their angry minds.

While I didn't agree with his positions, I can have friendly disagreements over policy, and still not find it necessary to despise anyone who disagrees with me. In fact, I have disagreements with my wife on all kind of policies and do not hate or despise her.

I disliked Strom thurmond's policies, but he accepted where he was wrong on civil rights and I applaud that.

With Helms, however, I do have huge disagreements with racists and cannot see how anyone can claim to be a good christian while hating people of the black ancestry. In fact, I cannot find a single reference attributed to Jesus condemning people for the color of their skin.

Jesse Helms when to his death bed without ever acknowledging that he was wrong on racism.

With the exeption of a few red states: Utah, Idaho, Mississippi, America has had it up to here with racism, a white, Christian nation, the KKK and our far-righters who believe they have a constitutional right to hate people with skin darker than theirs.
"White and Delightsome" is a monstrous ideology.

@ NO SURPRISE : You say Limbaughites like we are a vanishing breed. Did you notice that he just signed a 4oo million dollar contract? It takes a lot of Limbaughites to justify that. How is Air America doing?
The silent majority is growing stronger because more people realize that we have the ideas that help minorities get ahead - we don't just spoon -feed to buy votes while perpetually keeping the underprivileged "enslaved to the man"

That contract you are referring to is what LIMBAUGH told the "drive-by-media" (his term) he was making. Most people try to keep those figures private for obvious reasons.
You poor neocons simply cannot admit it when you've been duped and/or propagandized. (who does?)
The silent majority is not a majority at all. It's a shrinking, sad group of people who are paranoid of change and reform.
Why do you think both houses have shifted left and people are registering in droves as a Democrat?

Buck Wild makes a correct, though maybe not popular point. Racism (as an attitude) is legal. So is hate. As long as it goes no further, you are free to SAY just about anything you like about anybody without breaking the law. I'd like to think that open racism strikes most people as ugly and an unworthy trait, but it IS legal.

And you think I'M always wrong?

mmmmmm...... because the Democrats are registering dead people to vote again like they are notorious for doing?

I guess we really don't have to wait all that long as to what the outcome in November will be - will we?

Meanwhile, the presidential debates should be hilarious!

The smear campaign against Jesse Helms goes on unabated. He was a great American, cut of the same cloth like Larry McDonald, Ron Paul and a few others. Too bad we don't have more of these enlightened Americans -- then our country would not be in such a mess as it is now!

Yeah, that's what this country needs alright.
More bigoted, neoconservatives beatified.

Balderdash editorial! What a crock Great men and great politicians do not win by intimidation and nasty, underhanded techniques so that they can demean and debase others. Even miserably rotten individuals are capable of performing some correct actions, but that doesn't qualify them as great men.

Great men and great leaders show that quality though out the full spectrum of their activities. They do no need to play Jekyll/Hyde dual rolls or other hypocritical approached.

Pure mendacity is more like it for a nasty human being.

Mark B: Actually you are about 49% right most of the time but the other 51% tilts leftward. I can tell there is a right-winger inside you waiting to come out (probably after you get mugged or your car is stolen or something)I give you a hard time (saying you are always wrong because you put a little more thought into your posts than the average person who just says "Rush O'Hannity" or calls a right winger a racist- at least you can rationalize a viewpoint).
Everyone crying "Racist" might want to attend a re-re-education camp because you're so brainwashed you don't even know it. Most people don't even like 50% of their own relatives but they're supposed to just love other races? Please. My wife is Korean and my son Korean-American so don't even think I'm racist - and I don't want my son to have to deal with racism but if he does I'll just say " Son, the world is not a nice place-and it never has been - shake it off, be tough and remember .. the best revenge is a life well lived (something like that)"

All right. So we're both against racism, and both have families. I think it's wrong to rip a guy on the day of his funeral, but I still think Helms played to the worst that is in us. I'll miss him slightly more than Strom Thurmond.

Man of the right.
Racist, backwards, backwoods human being.
Truly a man amongst conservatives.
A true neocon hero.