Cheerio, Mate!

Jeff Jacoby, to whom I once referred as a "useless, jejune, dullard of a wanker, whose wanktastic brain has long waved adieu to the capacity for nuanced thought," quoted me in his column for the Boston Globe today, "Dancing on the Grave of Jesse Helms"—and proved his reading skills leave something to be desired, too.

In The Nation, the former North Carolina senator was memorialized as "Jesse Helms, American Bigot." For its online audience, The Washington Post resurrected a column David Broder produced when Helms announced his retirement: "Jesse Helms, White Racist."

The invective streamed in from across the pond as well. "There seemingly wasn't a right-wing, retrograde social issue Helms met that he didn't like," wrote Melissa McEwan in a savage essay on the Guardian's website. "It was . . . his unmitigated intolerance toward people of color that will define his legacy.

To what pond is he referring? Lake Michigan?

Dude, I live in the Midwest. Although I shall henceforth refer to traveling to the East Coast as "crossing the pond."

And that "savage essay" (written for Comment is Free America) includes the line: "The Dixiecrats are falling away, and we may inaugurate our first black president this year, despite their best efforts." We. Our president. He'd have a tough sell trying to convince me that he'd: A) Carefully read my piece; and B) Nonethless came away from it believing I was a Brit.

Now, if you'll excuse me, you cheeky gits, I have a meeting with the barrister at half-noon, and I'm feeling a bit peckish, so I'm going to do a wee fry-up for my elevenses, or maybe have a tin of beans with some bangers and mash, then watch a bit of telly on the chesterfield with a cuppa before I put on my plimsolls and hit the carriageway. Cheerio!

[H/T to Shaker Amit, in comments.]