Jesse Helms Has Died

As a resident of the West Coast, most of the news I recall about Senator Helms has the typical "white racist anti-Democratic" rhetoric from the Left, so you might do him an honor by reminding us of his true conservative accomplishments since the media did such a stellar job of obscuring them.

In the meantime, I found this charming piece about his relationship with Bono by Altert Eisele of The Hill called   Jesse Helms: Bono's My Buddy:

Former Sen. Jesse Helms (R-N.C.) considers Irish rock star Bono “an enormously impressive gentleman” and a friend of his and his wife’s.

So says the conservative icon in his memoirs, Here’s Where I Stand, due out late this month.

The 83-year-old Helms confesses he’d never heard of the U2 front man before their first meeting in 2001 but his “younger staff members had” and “lined up to get their pictures taken.”

He says he “happily accepted Bono’s invitation to take my family to his U2 concert in Washington, D.C., that week,” although he wasn’t quite as “into” the music as his grandkids, who remain envious of Helms’s relationship with Bono.

Helms also puts to rest the rumor that he and President Carter were distantly related. “[A] careful tracing of the family tree,” he writes, revealed only a possibility that each of their ancestors were neighbors in rural North Carolina.

“It hasn’t always been clear which of us would have been less enthusiastic to see the other guy show up at a family reunion,” writes Helms, who retired after 30 years in the Senate and now lives with his wife, Dot, in Raleigh.

He’s no more kind toward Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.), whom Helms found “to be a bit arrogant and overbearing, always looking for a television camera to preen in front of.”

In a foreword to the book, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) includes Helms among those “couple dozen” senators who “stand out in history as … defining leaders of their times.” Frist adds that “it would take ten senators to equal the impact of one Senator Helms.”

Nice.  Rest in peace today Senator Helms, President Jefferson and President Adams.