Heh, very nice takedown of Helms, from a conservative perspective:
[Fred] Barnes tried to argue that Helms, like Reagan,
reoriented the political debate. "Positions he noisily took in
Washington two decades ago, almost alone," wrote Barnes, "are now part
of mainstream conservatism. Among them: the balanced-budget amendment,
a flat tax, school prayer, curbs on food stamps, legislation banning
abortion." Of course, what the items on that list have in common, with
the possible and partial exception of limits on food stamps, is that
none is a whit closer to enactment or broad acceptance than it was 20
years ago.
In 1997, Barnes asked: "Would the House have voted to kill the National
Endowment for the Arts on July 10 if Helms hadn't first zinged the
agency in 1989 for funding obscene art and roasted it regularly since
then? Not a chance." Five years later, the NEA is not only alive but
thriving, its budget up by 16 percent since 1997. If you are a
conservative, pray that Jesse Helms does not take up your cause
Ht to Andrew.
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Ta-Nehisi,
If you'll excuse me going off-topic (I have nothing to say about Helms, now that he's passed away, other than agree with all what you wrote about in the post below) I'm wondering what you think of Jonah's latest where he compares Obama's call to increase national service volunteerism to slavery.
WTF?
I know you've heaped praise on Jonah before so I'm hoping you'll weigh in on this. It seems to me to be almost as much of a stretch as his oxymoronic 'liberal-fascism' perhaps I'm just missing the point.
oops, here's a link to Jonah's latest...
Jonah Goldberg: Forced servitude in America?
"The U.S. already has high rates of volunteerism, but that's apparently not good enough for our presidential candidates.
There's a weird irony at work when Sen. Barack Obama, the black presidential candidate who will allegedly scrub the stain of racism from the nation, vows to run afoul of the constitutional amendment that abolished slavery. ...."
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-goldberg8-2008jul08,0,368008.column