Jesse Helms died on the Fourth of July. Well, ok, other than the Carolinans and political junkies, most Americans might not have heard of him. The Washington Post reprinted David Broder's column from 2001, when Helms announced his retirement from the Senate. In that column, Broder wrote, "What really sets Jesse Helms apart is that he is the last prominent unabashed white racist politician in this country -- a title that one hopes will now be permanently retired."
Christopher Hitchens does not try to sugar coat his obit piece. (But then when has Hitchens ever done any sugar coating in any of his writings!) I liked this paragraph the best:
It was a scandal that a man with so little knowledge of the outside world should have had such a stranglehold on American foreign policy for so long. He once introduced Benazir Bhutto as the prime minister of India. All right, that could have happened to anybody. But what about the hearings on North Korea in which he made repeated references to "Kim Jong the Second"? In order to prevent any repetition of this idiotic gaffe, Helms' staff propped up a piece of card on which was clearly written the pronunciation "Kim Jong ILL." The senator from North Carolina duly made the adjustment, referring thenceforth to the North Korean despot as "Kim Jong the Third."
BTW, did you read Hitchens' piece on waterboarding? Here it is.
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