Journalism is not Classless Race Baiting

And the USA DNC Al-Jazeera Today dutifully printed DeWayne Wickham’s trashy article on the death of Jesse Helms.

Was Helms a perfect American? Of course not. But this race baiting columnist goes over the line during a time of mourning for the Helms family.

I did not take the opportunity of the Russert or Wellstone deaths to rant about their liberalism and how it hurt the United States. Let them rest in peace.

What Wickham did was even worse than just trashing the departed.

He takes the opportunity of the Jesse Helms death to discuss the political career of one Ben Tillman. Mr. Tillman, according to Wickham, was a white supremacist who held the Senate seat before Helms – at the turn of the century!

What does that have to do with Jesse Helms?

Wickham goes on to describe the racist rants and policies of Tillman while hinting every so often that “Helms seldom displayed the overt, incendiary racial prejudice that Ben Tillman…often spewed.”

A smearing of a man who is no longer here to defend himself by comparing him to a racist in the Senate – at the turn of the century? This is journalism?

Wickham adds this, “When Theodore Roosevelt invited black leader Booker T. Washington to dinner at the White House in 1901, Tillman was outraged. Ninety-four years later on Larry King Live, Helms was greeted by a caller who thanked him for helping to keep down the niggers.”

Ninety-four years later? Helms died at age 86. Obvious set-up call aside, Wickham’s analogy happened before Helms was born. This is journalism?

This article appeared in the USA DNC Al-Jazeera Today on page 11A - July 8, 2008. The Helms passing was not a big story and what was written equaled this slight of hand hit piece.

I will compare the coverage of the ‘liberal lion’ Sen. Edward Kennedy passing with interest now. The full page fluff stories and week long newspaper tributes ought to be a stark comparison.

Another example of the liberal media spoon feeding an ever more ignorant general public. I continue to stem the tide. – Hank Dagny