[mousepod]

I LOVE BossRadio's post!

One of the most important lessons I've learned over the last couple of decades is that it's perfectly fine to have "negative" feelings - as long as you recognize them and express them in a useful way. While I absolutely agree with LSPE that holding onto hate is a bad and dangerous thing, I would argue that it's even more dangerous to deny anger. Because it's real. And, unchecked, it can grow and become malevolent.

The fact that this argument is in a thread about Jesse Helms is what makes it interesting for me. Because, to many, Helms was a symbol of the worst that this country has to offer. A symbol. I don't look at his death as the death of a man, because I never knew him as a man. His death represents something - a silencing of a singularly hateful voice. And I rejoice at that. I feel no hatred, no anger - just relief. If his worldview was right, he's in heaven. Good for him.

When I heard that Tony Snow died, I felt none of the feelings that I felt when Helms died. Politically, I agreed with almost none of the beliefs that Snow espoused. As a mouthpiece of GWB, I hated him. But he was a man who didn't preach hate - he talked politics. And when I learned of his passing today, I felt sad. I didn't know him personally, of course. But I understood that during his life, he strove to make the world a better place - he just used a different blueprint than I would have used. Tony was the kind of person I would have liked to educate. To me, Helms was never a person. Helms was a bad idea made flesh. And the death of a bad idea is a good thing.

Rest in Peace, Tony Snow.