Let Us Now Speak Ill of the Economist of London

I would not have thought that a British publication could write an obituary for Jesse Helms that omits Helms's claim that British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher was a communist dupe helping the Russians conquer Central America.

Nevertheless, the London Economist does.

The lead to the London Economist's obituary for Jesse Helms is very bad:

Jesse Helms | Economist.com: SUPPORTERS put the best face they could on him. A real Southern gentleman.... A kind-hearted soul, who had adopted a boy with cerebral palsy, who bought ice-cream for his congressional pages and was delightful at dinner.... A true patriot, who saw America as God’s country and the world’s hope.... An anti-communist to make all others fade.... A doughty lover of liberty, who believed government should be small, laws unobtrusive, and men left alone to take responsibility for their own lives and their own decisions...

It does not get much better:

Jesse Helms | Economist.com: Mr Helms still carried in his head the mores of old Monroe, North Carolina... hot, quiet streets... cotton fields, flowers on the steps of the Confederate monument, Negroes stepping into the gutter to let whites pass. No mingling... uppityness punished, with a horsewhipping if need be.... [H]e railed against the welfare-scrounging poor, socialists and draft-resisters, as well as blacks... firm against government payments for the disabled, free school lunches and anything that encouraged bums in their “bum-ism”...

The Economist might have said that Jesse Helms's "small government frugality" did not extend to opposition to textile quotas or tobacco or peanut subsidies. It might have said that it was not a "horsewhipping" but a lynching that so many of Jesse Helms's constituents rightly feared. It might have said that what it calls "the mores of old Monroe" were never the mores of everybody in old Monroe--and that Jesse Helms was more a creator and user of them than a victim shaped by them.

The Economist might have wondered in what sense somebody who opposes equal rights for the non-white, non-male, non-heterosexual can be correctly termed a "lover of liberty." The Economist might have wondered in what sense somebody who dislikes so many of his own constituents and the entire populations of New York, Boston, San Francisco, and Los Angeles can be called a "true American patriot."

The Economist might have inquired how many African-Americans agreed with their toad-eating white fellow citizens that Jesse Helms was "delightful at dinner."

Of course, the Economist does none of these things.

Why oh why can't we have a better press corps?

Comments

[Movie Guy]

I don't know many people who really like "the entire populations of New York, Boston, San Francisco, and Los Angeles".

I think it's twelve friends and me. But I will call around to confirm...

.

[derrida derider]

The Economist has committed many sins, especially in its American coverage. But it is grossly misleading not to note that this particular obituary went on to call Helms a racist and a bigot, and finished with "In Jesse Helms, Southern charm personified, American conservatism embraced its own dark side." The whole tone was contemptuous of the old SOB and his supporters.

The Lexington column this week provided the usual appalling parrotting of RNC talking points (this week it's "Obama is a flip-flopper"). But even Lexington opened with "The right praised him [Helms] as a man of principle who also overflowed with the milk of human kindness. The left retorted—rightly in our view—that he was also a bigot and a bully".

[read that differently than you did--what's the "also" doing there, after all?]

Brad, its better not to accuse others of highly selective reporting when you are being so selective yourself. First remove the beam from your own eye.

[dank]

Having grown up in North Carolina in the 60s my strongest memory of Jesse Helms was the five minute editorial he gave on channel 5 in Raleigh in which he stated that economics should not be taught in our colleges and universities because it glorifies socialism (the word glorifies was pronounced in four syllables with emphasis on the second: "galooorifies".

[Scott Martens]

"...Helms's claim that British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher was a communist dupe helping the Russians conquer Central America."

That's a stretch to get from: "The tilt toward Britain will destroy the coalition we must have if we are to prevent a Communist takeover of Central America."

[No it isn't: it's "we do what Margaret Thatcher wants us to, and the Russkies take the Yucutan."]

[rea]

"That's a stretch"

Not at all.

[save_the_rustbelt]

The gross old fossil finally died.

Don't we have more pressing matters to discuss? Like, economics?

[Jie Ma]

I'm shocked....it sounds soooo obsequious. As I step into the work force and the "real world" and out of the bubble of Berkeley that I have been living, I do realize more and more that the media is SERIOUSLY flawed. But I don't know that change is realistic.

[Sanjay]

I'm just stunned by the ridiculousness of your entry, and the above commenters rightly call you on your questionable editing. The Economist out and out calls the guy a bigot and a racist. The weekly obituary is what it is, and it's not going to summarize in depth Helms' obnoxious positions: it gives you a quick summary of what the guy was about, and I think it gave one I (and most liberals) would find adequate. You want to know Helms' particular sins, you can go dig 'em up, but such would smell of foaming-mouthed nuttery since basically the guy was foul and they called him on it, and there's not much point in knowing your debating points on a dead dude.

[albatross]

Just as an aside, is there really some value in slamming people for either:

a. Making kind or even laudatory statements about a basically bad person in his obituary.

b. Or simply finding *some* kind words for the obituary of a basically bad person, in the midst of pointing out a lot (but maybe not an encyclopedic list) of his bad points?

I'm inclined to think that neither of these reflect much depth of belief in the goodness of the bad guy. Instead, they're attempts to find something nice to say about a genuine SOB who has just died, or at least not to write a several-page list of his bad points.

You often point out how crappy mainstream media coverage of serious issues is, and you're pretty clearly right about that. Is this kind of commentary an improvement on the public discussion? Does it make the country better, or inform anyone more? Because it looks, to me, like basically a way to slam your enemies that doesn't have much to do with serious or honest discussions of issues.

It also is eminently copyable by the right wing, as I expect we'll see when we read (for example) Ted Kennedy's obituary. It is, in fact, the kind of technique Helms would have probably used with relish.

[Jim]

Re your Heading: I read the first sentence: Helms carried the mores of the Monroe Doctrine