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It's an American reflex action by now. Someone famous dies, and regardless of what they are famous for - acting, charity, racism, etc. - they are lionized beyond any kind of recognition.

"Lionizing - it's like Martinizing, but for public personas!"

The person who we all knew they were is obfuscated by glowing praise and pardons for past offenses, as if simply dying earned them some sort of medal for character.

Apparently that is earned no matter how reprehensible you actually were in life. What I feared would happen is apparently taking place: conservatives are lionizing Jesse Helms.

I'm not concerned that condolences are being issued by people like President Bush; that's unsurprising and at some level ceremonious. But the language being used insults the intelligence of every one who really knew what this cat was up to:

Jesse Helms was a kind, decent, and humble man and a passionate defender of what he called "the Miracle of America." So it is fitting that this great patriot left us on the Fourth of July. He was once asked if he had any ambitions beyond the United States Senate. He replied: "The only thing I am running for is the Kingdom of Heaven."

Barf.

Are you kidding? "Kind, decent and humble"? This for a man who actively inflamed racial resentment in America to benefit politically and to service his own bigotry. Those three words would be about the last I'd pick, running just behind "soul brother", "humanitarian" and "courageous". The last one's unavailable, anyway, since Senate Minority (heh) Leader Mitch McConnell used it to describe Helms:

“Today we lost a Senator whose stature in Congress had few equals. Senator Jesse Helms was a leading voice and courageous champion for the many causes he believed in.”

Well, he did champion many causes he believed in, true enough. Such as opposition to federal funding to research an AIDS cure, refusing to speak to Ryan White's mother, even when they were alone in an elevator. (He then tried to block its re-funding years later, deeming that every case of AIDS stemmed from an instance of sodomy committed at some point. Because Jesse Helms knew that for certain.) He also championed pretty much anything that demeaned the African-American populace, including any chance to celebrate our struggle for civil rights. Take, for instance, the Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday, which he filibustered against, seemingly for both political gain and personal satisfaction. When running for re-election, he embodied the "Southern" strategy, inflaming the fears of Whites with "warnings" about Black voter drives.

All this can be found in an incisive critique of Helms written by David Broder of the Washington Post:

All year, Peterson reported, "Helms campaign literature sounded a drumbeat of warnings about black voter-registration drives. . . . On election eve, he accused Hunt of being supported by 'homosexuals, the labor union bosses and the crooks' and said he feared a large 'bloc vote.' What did he mean? 'The black vote,' Helms said." He won, 52 percent to 48 percent.

In 1990, locked in a tight race with an African American Democrat, former Charlotte mayor Harvey Gantt, Helms aired a final-week TV ad that showed a pair of white hands crumpling a rejection letter, while an announcer said, "You needed that job and you were the best qualified. But they had to give it to a minority because of a racial quota." Once again, he pulled through.

That is not a history to be sanitized.

Couldn't agree more. But what's sad is that Broder said this seven years ago when Helms retired from the Senate, after similar lionizing had taken place.

This Mother Jones piece was published in 1995, and it was titled appropriately:

His agenda is driven by a lifelong opposition to democracy and diversity. In his first months as Foreign Relations chair, Helms called for tougher sanctions against Cuba, accused Haitian President Jean Bertrand Aristide of unleashing "vigilance committees," and moved to gut support for developing nations. On the home front, he introduced a bill to eliminate all affirmative action programs, which he denounced as "reverse discrimination at the hands of ruthless bureaucrats."

How did someone so mean-spirited end up in a position to act on his divisive politics? For the most part, Helms wins political battles by keeping the spotlight on the morality plays he stages. To hear conservatives tell it, Helms is a personal friend of Jesus Christ, a populist defender of the little guy, and a bitter opponent of big government.

When you write your own legacy, inevitably, something will get messed up. When others try to rewrite it in the face of so much evidence, forget it - those of us reading it will just be insulted.

Or maybe not:

Many white North Carolinians are no doubt motivated to vote for Helms because of the almost primal fears he fans. "The principles we're espousing have been around for thousands of years," former aide James Lucier once explained, citing the "prepolitical" themes of God, family, property, and national pride.

But some voters are also attracted to Helms by the personal qualities that make him a rarity among politicians. He brings genuine passion and a sense of moral purpose to what he does. He stands on principle and refuses to compromise. He stands by his friends, and he forces opponents to vote on issues they would rather ignore.

This is the kind of thinking that has America in the mess it's in.

The Republican Party celebrates this kind of thinking because it helps get them elected; conservatives at large (not all, mind you) celebrate Helms because he embodies the "good ol' boy" politics that has allowed for the principles they believe in to be made real. (Or worse, made law.)

So I ask Black Republicans: what the hell are you thinking? This is the party you want to associate yourself with? The fact that these folks lionize a man who thought you were inferior to him because of your melanin and the culture from which you originate should be sickening to you. It sure as hell is to me. Why would you want to traffic with such folk?

I know that I said last week that I needed to pray on this. And I did. I still am. But the praise for this man is too much for me to bear. I say that knowing full well that your estimation of me may take a hit over this.

Let me simply refer to Broder once again:

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.

And he never did. Weep not for Jesse Helms.

SEE FOR YOURSELF.

Hilzoy at Obsidian Wings gives you a list of laudatory remarks, criticisms of such and Helms' own damning words. (And I mean "damning" as literally as possible. So does Lisa Duggan at The Nation.)