He’s dead.

CNN is calling him a “conservative icon.”

The Republicans are sobbing at the loss of one of their own:

“Today we lost a senator whose stature in Congress had few equals,” said Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Senate’s Republican leader. “Sen. Jesse Helms was a leading voice and courageous champion for the many causes he believed in.”

Apparently McConnell believes in those causes too.

And there is sadness in the White House where spokesman Scott Stanzel said,

“America lost a great public servant and true patriot today.”

There were tears, sadness and media loss of memory. Jesse Helms, who died today at 86, was a racist, homophobic cretin. People who believe in decency, equality and fairness will not be shedding tears. In fact, at your 4th of July picnic, you might just want to hoist an extra to note his passing.

Fair and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR) disclosed the following example of Helms’ racism in 2001:

As an aide to the 1950 Senate campaign of North Carolina Republican candidate Willis Smith, Helms reportedly helped create attack ads against Smith’s opponent, including one which read: “White people, wake up before it is too late. Do you want Negroes working beside you, your wife and your daughters, in your mills and factories? Frank Graham favors mingling of the races.” Another ad featured photographs Helms himself had doctored to illustrate the allegation that Graham’s wife had danced with a black man. (The News and Observer, 8/26/01; The New Republic, 6/19/95; The Observer, 5/5/96; Hard Right: The Rise of Jesse Helms, by Ernest B. Furgurson, Norton, 1986)

A true patriot in the view of the Bush White House.