Creep of the Week - September 20, 1997

Image: Jesse Helms

Jesse Helms
"That Way to Mexico, Mr. Weld"
If you were writing a novel about a cantankerous, ornery, pig-headed old mule who grows tobacco for a living and pisses off the neighbors with his stubborn, pious behavior, you couldn't come up with a more appropriate character than Jesse Helms. What's he do when they complain? He just cackles with that congested voice of his that sounds like he's got a chaw halfway down his throat that he's about to cough up. Unfortunately, however, Jesse is not a tobacco farmer and he's not just pissing off the neighbors. He's a Republican United States Senator from North Carolina and Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, where he's made himself the judge, jury and sovereign over the nation's foreign policy.

Last week, Jesse killed the nomination of William Weld to become Ambassador to Mexico. Well, that's OK, isn't it? It's the Senate's constitutional duty to advise and consent on presidential nominations, so they were just doing their jobs, right? Hearings, deliberations, speeches and then a vote - it's truth, justice and the American way! Seeing the system work kinda gets you all choked up inside, doesn't it?

Not this time. Jesse killed the nomination single-handedly by simply refusing to hold a hearing. Weld tried to arrange a personal meeting with Jesse - no reply, just a cackle. The normally milquetoast Richard Lugar, another Republican on the Committee, called Jesse "arbitrary and dictatorial." More cackling. No hearing. Jesse thinks Weld, a fellow Republican who resigned as Governor of Massachusetts to pursue this nomination, is too soft on drugs because he advocates needle exchange programs and the medicinal use of marijuana! Can't have that kind of guy in Mexico! How about a hearing to get this all out on the record? Cackle.

Lugar, through a parliamentary maneuver, forced Jesse to hold a Committee meeting (not a hearing) on the subject. Anyone who cherishes the democratic process ought to be outraged by Jesse's disgraceful performance at that meeting. He spent the entire time ranting that the press and his fellow senators were making a big deal about all this, that he was within his rights as Committee Chairman to do whatever the hell he wants to, and anyone who has a problem with that is cordially invited to eat his shorts. Whenever one of the other Committee members tried to speak, Jesse shouted him down (while still trying to dislodge that chaw) and pounded the gavel like a bug-eyed lunatic trying to wipe out a swarm of cockroaches. No hearing. Cackle. Soft on drugs! Zero-tolerance issue!

Well, not quite zero. What's your position on nicotine, Jesse? "Now don't you go runnin' down the good tobacco farmers of North Carolina," he scolds as he finally frees that chaw and spits it out on your shoes. "Oh, now, I guess I missed the spittoon."

And that was that. Weld withdrew, saying he was told he needed to "kiss a lot of rings'' in the Senate to get confirmed and "I would not go on bended knee and I wouldn't kiss anything.'' Jesse said Weld was "a little loose with his lips.'' Trent Lott, the Majority Leader of the Senate, who could have circumvented Jesse if he'd wanted to, said that Weld hadn't been diplomatic enough. Bill Clinton, who set this whole thing in motion by nominating Weld in first place, said "Sorry to upset you, Jesse" and went back to the golf course.

Would William Weld have made a good ambassador? I don't know. No one else does either. That's what hearings are for. This fight was billed as a "battle for the soul of the Republican party." If Jesse is now the soul of the party, those GOP boys better hope he's not their throat and voice, too.

Let me know what you think at montgome@servtech.com

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