ANGLE COVERS AN OLDIE FROM THE JESSE HELMS REPERTOIRE

You know about this, right?

Nevada U.S. Senate candidate Sharron Angle sees her campaign as a battle to stop Democrats in Washington who want to expand entitlement programs and "make government our God."

... Reid, President Barack Obama and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi have pushed "entitlement programs built to make government our God," says Angle, who has called for privatizing Social Security and Medicare for younger workers.

"What's happening in this country is a violation of the First Commandment," Angle told Trunews in the April interview, which is posted on the network's website....

That's not some crazy thing she just made up. That was an assertion regularly made by Jesse Helms.

Helms in 1975, endorsing the presidential candidacy of Ronald Reagan:

For too many years, the leadership of this nation has attempted to make a god of government. It hasn’t worked for the Democrats, and it won't work for us. Ronald Reagan knows that.

Helms in 1981, addressing students at Bunn Bible Class in North Carolina:

We must not make a God of Government. Liberalism is moving into the churches, and that has invited the tidal wave of secular humanism engulfing this country and the world ... Now, I am not holier than thou. I am not in a position to judge. But I gotta level with you: we become part of what we condone.

Helms during his 1984 Senate campaign:




I can't say for certain whether Ol' Jess was the first to say this, and I'm also not sure whether Angle knows he said it. But there it is: Angle's new riff is an old Jesse Helms talking point.