Rush Limbaugh is a big fat idiot -- the sequel
10/25/06 10:20 AM
By ED BARK
Basic human compassion isn't one of Rush Limbaugh's strong suits, unless it concerns his own peculiar drug uses and abuses.
In that case, he wants us to pity the fool. Otherwise he's not quite as forgiving or understanding. Limbaugh's latest target, Michael J. Fox, took a sucker punch for his campaign commercial on behalf of Missouri Democratic Senate candidate Claire McCaskill, who backs embryonic stem cell research. So does Fox, who's been battling the debilitating effects of Parkinson's Disease for the past 15 years. Now he literally can't sit still anymore, as was evident in the ad.
Fox, in full closeup, moves from side to side throughout the 30-second spot, which ends with him saying, "What you do in Missouri matters to millions of Americans. Americans like me."
Limbaugh, on his syndicated radio program, initially contended that Fox was "either off his medication or acting" in the ad. "I think this is exploitative in a way that's unbecoming of either Claire McCaskill or Michael J. Fox," he said.
Of course he blurted this out with his usual impunity. Later he backpedaled a bit. A transcript from Limbaugh's Monday show, published on his website, says in part: "All I'm saying is I've never seen him the way he appears in this commercial for Claire McCaskill. So I will bigly, hugely admit that I was wrong, and I will apologize to Michael J. Fox, if I am wrong in characterizing his behavior on this commercial as an act, especially since people are telling me they have seen him this way on other interviews and in other television appearances."
Limbaugh was back at it the next day, though, saying that Fox has admitted in his autobiography, Lucky Man: A Memoir, that he sometimes goes off his medication to make a point in public. Yeah, so? Limbaugh has no evidence that Fox "acted" his way through the McCaskill commercial. And anyone who's seen him in performances or interviews knows that his condition has greatly worsened in recent years.
Anyone of any political persuasion, including Limbaugh, is free to debate the morality or merits of stem cell research. It's also fair game to question whether it's entirely truthful for Fox to say that McCaskill's opponent, Republican Sen. Jim Talent, "opposes expanding stem cell research."
Instead Limbaugh first chose to brand Fox as a faker. And now, of course, he's dismissing any and all criticism as the work of the liberal "drive by media" he so loves to castigate.
In Limbaugh's view, "Michael J. Fox is allowing his illness to be exploited and in the process is shilling for a Democratic politician." And he deems this "much more offensive than Hillary's (Republican) Senate opponent implying that she's ugly."
There'll be no implying here. On the issue of Michael J. Fox -- to name just one -- Rush Limbaugh is a fathead. And a big, fat idiot, too.
Here is the Michael J. Fox ad: