"Well, it's easy to state what has been my biggest mistake. The greatest mistake I ever made was joining the Ku Klux Klan. And I've said that many times. But one cannot erase what he has done. He can only change his ways and his thoughts. That was an albatross around my neck that I will always wear. You will read it in my obituary that I was a member of the Ku Klux Klan ." (Slate quoting a 1993 CNN interview with Sen. Byrd)

• or
  

"There is little doubt that Helms' aggressive "I'm-right-you're-
wrong-that-settles it" brand of political absolutism was music to the
ears of a great many unreconstructed whites in North Carolina and
across the South. When they watched old Jesse slandering the memory of
Martin Luther King Jr. or kicking the butts of northern liberals,
feminists, gays and black activists like the Rev. Jesse Jackson, these
Southerners could almost imagine themselves at Gettysburg, succeeding
where Confederate Gen. George Pickett had failed. Helms' ideology and
temperament also appealed to right-wing zealots outside the South,
whose campaign contributions enabled him to spend nearly $15 million on
his last campaign and nearly $18 million on the one before that. For
all the big bucks behind him, however, Helms never persuaded more than
55% of the Tarheel electorate to vote for him." Ideology Trumped All; JAMES C. COBB Los Angeles Times Aug 26, 2001 pg. M.2

So, 'change his ways and his thoughts' or  as Broder  put it; '.. the last prominent unabashed white racist politician in this country." (WaPo, August 29 2001 Proquest or racematters.org )

Exactly Noel...

...and I did just that after his second post.

Not worth it.

btw...What I don't understand is why this guy is still on here.

Oh well..it is what it is...

"America isn't the problem...America is the solution." ~ Rush Limbaugh

I was living in the South when Helms began doing his nightly editorials.. I've seen and experienced first hand the kind of hatred and inhumane behavior that kind of despicable thinking foments. I had friends directly affected by the racist and homophobic mindset he actively promoted throughout his career.

To think that he needs some sort of grace period for mourning after the amount of damage he and his ilk has caused this country really says a lot about that frame of thinking.

After Helms' fatal attempt to derail the Senate vote for MLK day by attempting to link him to Lenin/Marxist and Communist sympathies and to how much the holiday would cost the economy, Kennedy spoke about "...how it was critical to fight intolerance in our land, about how every
generation needs to build bridges of understanding. He wanted the holiday to remind Americans that our nation must ensure equal opportunity for all and said that King had died fighting for that inalienable right.(WaPo)

Dole said: "To those who would worry about cost, I would suggest they hurry back to their pocket calculators and estimate the cost of 300 years of slavery, followed by a century or more of economic, political and social exclusion and discrimination."(WaPo) " 

That is what we should be thinking about, not some way to eulogize this person.

You can bet Giles will be out there eulogizing when that drunken murderer, Ted Kennedy, finally faces justice that he cannot buy off with his family's money.