Putting Helms' Name on AIDS Bill the Ultimate Insult

A move by Sen. Elizabeth Dole to honor former Republican colleague Jesse Helms by adding his name to a bill that would combat AIDS has Pandagon blogger Pam Spaulding seeing red. "Dole spits in the face" of gay activists, Spaulding writes, by attaching the stridently anti-homosexual Helms to a measure that could save thousands of lives.

"Thousands died because of Helms’s bigotry," Spaulding continues, then launches into a rant against the North Carolina incumbent's re-election campaign. "There are so many reasons why Liddy needs to be defeated, and this only adds to the pile." Pitted against Kay Hagan, "there’s zero incentive to vote for Dole—unlike the man whose name she wants to attach to that AIDS bill, she’s got a horrible reputation for constituent services." (More Jesse Helms stories.)