Here's a quick look at how newspapers, blogs and others are playing the news that Jesse Helms has died:

— "There are two million people alive in Africa today, because Jesse Helms did the right thing," said rock star Bono who worked with Helms on relieving AIDS in Africa.

— Jesse Helms finally dies, The Village Voice.

— “America lost a great public servant and true patriot today,” White House spokesman Scott Stanzel.

— The End of a Bigot, Andrew Sullivan, The Daily Dish

— "He practices what he preached, always. He believed that what he was doing was right, as far as I know," Claude Sitton, former editor of The News & Observer and frequent critic of Helms. "To my knowledge, he never put his finger in the public till and was honest about his beliefs, which were not my beliefs. But he went his way and I went mine."

— "A polarizer, not a compromiser," — Larry Margasak, veteran AP congressional reporter.

North Carolina's Senate race has been getting a lot of press in New York.

First, there was the New York Post, which inaccurately promoted Jesse Helms to the next world. Now, there's the Village Voice, which skims over the whole primary issue to declare Jim Neal the Democratic candidate against U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Dole. (Sorry, Kay.)

The interview with gay columnist Michael Musto has drawn attention for this exchange on Dole:

"She's not as polarizing in terms of her stance on social issues," said Neal. "Jesse Helms will be remembered as being a very polarizing, mean person. An old-line party activist in North Carolina named Betty McCain said, 'Helms is so mean that when he was a boy, his mother had to tie a pork chop around his neck so the dogs would come play with him.' " "I thought that was to keep away the Jews," I remarked, saucily. "There aren't any!" replied Neal, laughing.

As Mark Binker points out, there are more than a few Jews in North Carolina, and Neal's characterization of his sexual orientation as essentially uncovered by the news media rings a bit hollow. 

And then there's this line, the sort of gay slang that goes well in Greenwich Village but doesn't play quite the same in the Piedmont:

"Yes, I was a breeder," he says, using the slightly derisive '90s era term for heterosexuals. "When I did meet someone and fell in love with him, call it an epiphany or whatever, but I couldn't live with myself any other way than who I am!"