Civility demands that when a major political figure dies, journalists (and others, too) should summon their respects, acknowledge the importance of this national figure, and perhaps even concede that the intentions of his public service were good. Not so with Jesse Helms.

When the rest of America had moved on, Mr Helms still carried in his head the mores of old Monroe, North Carolina, where he was born: the hot, quiet streets among the cotton fields, flowers on the steps of the Confederate monument, Negroes stepping into the gutter to let whites pass. No mingling occurred there. God's dictates were observed. Good conduct was rewarded, uppityness punished, with a horsewhipping if need be. In Monroe Mr Helms learnt to play the race card, that fear of touching and that sense of suppressed disorder. "Do you want Negroes working beside you?" asked the first political campaign he worked for, in 1950. "You needed that job…but they had to give it to a minority," ran one of the last, in 1990, as a white hand crumpled a rejection slip.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, liberals on the Internet made these old-media critiques look sedate. They didn't see any need to observe any kind of civility, letting their rage and ill will erupt like a spewing volcano.

At a moment like this, when friends and family and allies of Senator Helms mourn, it's quite clear that liberals should not suggest in public that they are somehow losing to conservatives in a contest to demonstrate who has more capacity to display callous, middle-finger meanness and breathtaking insensitivity.

And the man ABC News now describes as a "conservative icon" in 1993 sang "Dixie" in an elevator to Carol Moseley-Braun, the first African-American woman elected to the Senate, bragging, "I'm going to make her cry. I'm going to sing Dixie until she cries."

More recently, when a caller to CNN's Larry King Live show praised guest Jesse Helms for "everything you've done to help keep down the niggers," Helms' response was to salute the camera and say, "Well, thank you, I think."

The idea concerns the fact that this country wants nostalgia. They want to go back as far as they can - even if it's only as far as last week. Not to face now or tomorrow, but to face backwards. And yesterday was the day of our cinema heroes riding to the rescue at the last possible moment. The day of the man in the white hat or the man on the white horse - or the man who always came to save America at the last moment - someone always came to save America at the last moment - especially in 'B' movies. And when America found itself having a hard time facing the future, they looked for people like John Wayne. But since John Wayne was no longer available, they settled for Ronald Reagan - and it has placed us in a situation that we can only look at -- like a 'B' movie.