Right-Wingers’ Hail Mary Attack
November 5, 2006
On Monday October 23, 2006, on his daily radio show, Rush Limbaugh, the implausibly popular conservative talk show host, controversially criticized actor Michael J. Fox for appearing in campaign ads endorsing Democratic candidates who support stem cell research. His initial disgust was at the actor’s purported exaggeration of his condition. Although Mr. Limbaugh later apologized for the statement when many pointed out that the physical manifestation of Mr. Fox’s Parkinson’s Disease was in fact not deliberately amplified for the sake of the commercial, he did not relent entirely. He proceeded to lambaste the actor for apparently abusing the power of having a disease to endorse a Democratic candidate. Of course the irony was lost on him - Mr. Limbaugh is himself guilty of exploiting the issue by using his outrage at Mr. Fox’s performance as a flimsy cover to attack the Democrats in a cheap pre-election trick.
But while Mr. Limbaugh’s attack is superficially shocking – challenging the veracity of another’s disease/disability and charging that it’s merely a front used to further the campaign of a politician is practically a crime in itself – it is also repulsive at its core. Why the vehement outburst against Mr. Fox? This ad should come as no great surprise to anyone even remotely familiar with Mr. Fox’s track record as someone who has devoted his later years to increasing support for and awareness of Parkinson’s Disease, with stem cell research providing much hope in the search for a cure. Surely in this case, the reaction was spurred on by Mr. Limbaugh’s own personal intense opposition to stem cell research and the ill-informed (read: non-science based) opinions on the matter espoused by his loyal followers – members of the far right who equate embryonic stem cell research with human cloning and murder. The resistance has become so passionate that Mr. Limbaugh and those like him are blind to any facts that may enter the discussion. See the actual facts in the text version of Missouri’s Proposition 2. Moreover, what makes Mr. Limbaugh’s gut reaction so vile to the rest of us is his need to take down the person presenting the issue, rather than discuss the merits of the issue itself. He plays to his base by stoking their worst fears – human cloning, embryo destruction – without acknowledging the facts. Fact: Stem cell research would not produce embryos that could become humans. Fact: While scientists should of course tread carefully, we are a long way off from Gattaca and The Island.
Taking a page out of the Democrats’ ad, the Republicans rushed to line up their own celebrities to respond to Mr. Fox’s series of commercials. The latest miscue from the G.O.P. is almost laughable. Throwing a few C-list athletes and actors in front of the screen does not amount to a serious rebuttal. Mr. Fox lives with the disease every day and has become a prominent spokesman for its advocacy groups. He’s clearly got a vested interest in finding a cure for the disease. The various spokespeople chosen by the Republicans to state their case could not have missed the point more. Kurt Warner admits to doing the commercial (as many bloggers have noted, in an orange jumpsuit in front of a brick wall) because of his Christian faith. Hardly a strong scientific case to rebut Fox’s argument. And the inclusion of Jim Caviezel (several commentators have questioned whether his garbled introduction was given in Aramaic) was bound to invite the Jesus jokes.
On the eve of an election where pundits everywhere are predicting gains by Democrats – enough to nullify the GOP majority in both houses of Congress, if not gain a majority of their own – Mr. Limbaugh and those on the right are once again playing the same old tune: attack the Democrats on image and superficial nonsense (see: Kerry Misses a Line, GOP Misses the Point) while playing down the facts. Fact: the Republicans are running scared.