Gore's Hackles Up Over Helms' Threat

0 Comments | Insight on the News, Nov 15, 1999 | by John Elvin

Vice President Al Gore went positively off over a threat by Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Jesse Helms of North Carolina to block the nomination of Democratic former U.S. senator

Carol Moseley-Braun as ambassador to New Zealand. Gore said he is "deeply angered and disappointed" by the "disgraceful tactic" of "partisan revenge." Helms has asked the controversial Moseley-Braun, who consorted with a Nigerian dictator against U.S. government policy and came under serious scrutiny with regard to use of campaign funds, to apologize for blocking his 1993 effort to renew the United Daughters of the Confederacy's design patent on an insignia featuring the flag of the Confederacy surrounded by a wreath.

Moseley-Braun had risen on the Senate floor to denounce the flag as a symbol of racism. The Daughters, by the way, is -- to use Helms' phrase -- "a wonderful group of little old ladies" devoted to remembering their forefathers who died fighting for a way of life that only for very few included owning plantations.

According to Roll Call newspaper, Helms suggested that Moseley-Braun "better look for another line of work." Though the media focused fairly exclusively on the flag matter, as did Gore in his denunciation, Helms also said he would be looking into possible "ethical lapses" on the appointee's part that were of a nature serious enough to cause the voters of Illinois to reject her for another term.

Ignoring those ethical questions in his comments, Gore said it "is time to put an end to the politics of personal vindictiveness and divisiveness, and it is time for this Congress to act in the interests of America's working families again." One wonders how "working families" got in the middle of all this, but perhaps having dealt so harshly with the interests of "little old ladies" Gore was compelled to mention some other interest group that he supports.