Rachel does a fine job as usual recounting specific episodes of the man Ted Cruz chose to honor a couple days ago at the Heritage Foundation. Jesse Helms overt, pronounced racism with Senator Carol Mosely Braun, and in his own 1988 senate race with Harvey Gantt among the more sordid episodes in recent political history.

"We need a hundred more like him in the senate", said Ted Cruz. Yes, like a hole in the head.

(AP) WASHINGTON — The way Sen. Carol Moseley-Braun relates the story, Sen. Jesse Helms entered the Senate elevator, saw her, and began singing, "I wish I was in the land of cotton. . . "

Helms, a Republican from North Carolina, recalled his brief encounter with the Senate's only black member differently and described it as "a good-natured exchange," an aide said.

Moseley-Braun, a Democrat from Illinois, told the story at the National Urban League annual dinner Wednesday night, about two weeks after another tangle with Helms in which she defeated his move to renew a patent on the Confederate flag insignia.

The incident happened Tuesday, she said. When Helms stepped into the elevator, "he saw me standing there, and he started to sing, 'I wish I was in the land of cotton . . . ' And he looked at Sen. Hatch and said, 'I'm going to make her cry. I'm going to sing 'Dixie' until she cries.'

"And I looked at him and said, 'Sen. Helms, your singing would make me cry if you sang 'Rock of Ages,' " Moseley-Braun said.