Michael J. Fox Pilloried on our Bruising Political Culture

This is what our caustic argument culture has come to: a shaking, agitated Michael J. Fox gamely answering a politely put, yet horribly insulting question on national television.

Did you gin up your illness to wring sympathy from viewers in a political ad?

The minute I heard Rush Limbaugh had gone out on that creaky limb -- of course, he now says the "drive-by media" distorted the points he was making -- I knew he had committed the same mistake Republicans have been making all year.

Progressives and liberals can't touch conservatives when it comes to crafting a powerful message and amplifying it through a secondary network of TV, radio and print outlets which serve their agenda. So their only problem comes when they wound themselves -- taking the rough and tumble of modern-day election propagandizing way too far.

Limbaugh's comments may have boosted the morale of hardcore Dittoheads who love seeing him tear into a celebrity they perceive as a typical Hollywood liberal. But he also made Fox look sympathetic as hell to anyone with an ounce of objectivity during the former TV star's appearance a few hours ago on Katie Couric's CBS Evening News broadcast.

To his credit, Fox has kept an amazingly good attitude about Limbaugh's blockheaded criticism -- sitting through a set-up report by Couric that included clips of the talk radio king waving his arms in a horribly insensitive parody of his pro-stem cell research commercial. (humor Web sites sprung into action, offering parody stories in which Limbaugh accused Christopher Reeve and U.S. troops killed in Iraq of faking their deaths to serve a liberai agenda)

One sample --

Couric: “I called Rush Limbaugh and he told me, ‘I believe Democrats have a long history of using victims of various things as political spokespeople because they believe they are untouchable, infallible – they are immune from criticism.’”

Fox:  “Well, first thing, he used the word ‘victim’ and [on] other occasions I heard you use the word ‘pitiable.’  Now understand, no one in this position wants pity.  We don’t want pity.  I could give a damn about Rush Limbaugh’s pity or anyone else’s pity and I am not a victim.”

Still, I got a little queasy watching a guy who has done nothing but work hard  to beat a horrible disease patiently explain that Parkinsons sufferers can never anticipate the effects of medication, and that too much medication can also produce uncontrollable movements -- which what he says happened during the commercial taping. He also noted offering similar support to Republican Sen. Arlen Specter, a cancer survivor who also is an aggressive advocate for stem cell research.   

This interview also proved to me the degree to which Couric makes herself vulnerable to conservative critics, simply because she reacts to their flak more visibly. Asking Fox probing questions as a devil's advocate, she wound up treating Limbaugh's paranoid political fantasies as a valid concern, instead of bringing some reasonable perspective to a clearly wacked out concept.

I already knew Limbaugh was full of it, because I had heard from a friend years ago who sat next to Fox and his family at a vacation resort dining hall and told me sadly of how tough it was for the former Family Ties star to control his movements, even then. Couric, who admitted at the end of her interview that she has contributed to Fox's stem cell charity for years and has a father who is struggling with Parkinson's, also knew the deal going in and should have made that clear in her questioning.

Thanks to Couric's fear of looking partisan, we viewers spent long minutes watching a guy with an awful illness explain how it is so awful, he really couldn't have controlled it in the way Limbaugh claimed. It became a living testament to how putrid our political discourse has come, especially on TV -- as debates on terrorism, nuclear arms and the limits of freedom in a democracy at war are boiled down to shouting matches between Susan Estrich and Laura Ingraham on the Today show.

As if from the mouth of babes, former NBC News correspondent Linda Ellerbee has produced a documentary for Nickelodeon on this very issue (airing at 8:30 p.m. Nov. 5), Cheap Shots and Low Blows: How Debate turns to Hate, asking, "is debate more honest when we take the gloves off, or just louder?"

Watching her capture Ann Coulter express sympathy for Limbaugh having to look an Al Franken book with a bruising title (her quote about Muslims: "We should invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity.") is almost as sidesplitting as seeing Franken criticize the argument culture just before justifying the book's title.

The lesson here is simple. Time for the silly arguments to stop and the search for real answers to begin (I'll be trying to put this ethic into action when I appear on Rob Lorei's local pundit show, Florida This Week at 8:30 p.m. Triday on WEDU-Ch. 3).   

And its time for media figures to stop profiting from the fight and start leading the charge to sanity. Because if they don't, who will?

Comments

[Joel]

And there you have it: Couric, Coulter, Franken and all the rest are on the front of books, national TV etc. Meanwhile you're going to try to make sense on PBS.

Bill O'Reilly had a couple of talking heads on tonight, discussing the Fox ad and resulting brouhaha. One of them sat there with the straightest of faces, saying that he was upset that the sympathy Fox supposedly begged for in the ad precluded a discussion of the issues. Not Limbaugh's nonsense, not the media's agitation of the ordeal, but Fox.

Is it any wonder I can only stand to watch BBC's personality-free news readers?

[Memsaab - The Global Indian Women]

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[Brian Lupiani]

Limbaugh has once again proved to be the perfect representative for his EIB Network - Excrement In Broadcasting.

[Jan Creighton]

I have always enjoyed MJF. I am concerned that he has been so deceived by the potential of Embryonic SCR (stem cell research). In over 20 years of Embryonic SCR, not even one mouse has helped another mouse!

Embryonic SCR is being done on human embryos. It's legal because there are few laws that limit it, even though it does require killing an embryo, a human being in the 2nd stage of development, a scientific fact not a religious position.

Embryonic stem cells have only grown uncontrollably into mutations & tumors.

NO SUCCESS, IMMORAL, Why The Campaign For Embryonic SCR? MONEY

Large corporations & individuals have invested BILLIONS into Embryonic SCR to no avail. Of course they are reluctant to invest further and so why not go after tax money?

Bio-tech lawyers wrote MO's Amendment2.

The bio-tech industry has invested $30,000,000 to promote politicians in favor of Embryonic SCR.

Press releases from the bio-tech industry credit Embryonic SCR with the successes of Adult SCR by not differentiating between the 2 types of stem cell research. ADULT SCR Has Developed 72 Treatments, Helping Hundreds of Thousands of Patients, Giving Investors a Return on Their Investment

MO's Amendment2 sounds like its banning cloning, a branch of Embryonic SCR, when in reality it not only protects cloning, it funds it. If MO funds any disease research, MO will be forced to give equal MO tax $ to the cloners. No amendment has guaranteed funds to an industry. www.stemcellresearch.org www.nocloning.org

[Jan Creighton]

To those who say they are for stem cell research:

I cannot emphasize how important it is for everyone to differentiate between the 2 kinds of stem cell research (SCR). To say, I am for stem cell research, is vague as there is a huge difference between Embryonic SCR and Adult SCR.

Embryonic SCR is SCR on stem cells taken from an embryo. Adult SCR is SCR on everything else, including the umbilical cord, the nose, eyelid, bone marrow, etc. Store your baby’s umbilical cord in a Cord Bank to avoid rejection problems from embryonic stem cells!

72 to Zero
As of October 2006, adult stem cell research has resulted in 72 cures/treatments, helping hundreds of thousands of people. Embryonic research has resulted in none/zero/zip. Not even has one mouse cured another mouse in over 20 years & BILLIONS$ of Embryonic SCR! Adult SCR has made money for investors. Embryonic SCR has not, and so, the investors are after our tax money.

To Kill or Not to Kill
Embryonic stem cell research requires the killing of an unborn human embryo. Adult stem cell research does not. Don’t let the latest reports fool you. Never has an embryo survived having stem cells removed. If an embryo would survive, what kind of disabled adult would an embryo become after having 10% of his stem cells removed?

Press releases by the bio-tech industry credit Embryonic SCR with the successes of Adult SCR by not differentiating between the 2 types of stem cell research. Always differentiate!

[Eric Deggans]

If we're differentiating the facts, then let's do them all.

It's a fact, for example, that huge numbers of embryonic stem cells created for fertility treatments are now discarded -- essentially thrown in the trash -- instead of used for research.

Why is it better to take a frozen embryo and toss it in a refuse heap instead of using it for research which may help someone like Michael J. Fox?

I'm not someone who believes these embryos are sentient life to be protected. But even if I was, I would have to think that using something for productive medical research makes more sense than throwing it away.

And seeing conservatives like Nancy Reagan and Arlen Specter agree with these ideas -- because they have been personaally touched by illnesses which might be cured by such research -- is the crowning touch.

All of a sudden, creating a culture of life takes on a new resonance when it's your life -- or a loved one's -- that's at stake.

[larry d.]

Isn't "productive medical research" pretty much the main question raised in Jan's post?

Why not respond to that point/question rather than rely on the pity factor, as Fox and friends seem to do?