3002 I love Michael J. Fox

but the press is having a field day because Rush Limbaugh dared to question him as an "untouchable" spokesman for Democratic causes because he has a debilitating, progressive disease. Rush believes that if you become a political advocate, you are fair game. Democrats and the media believe you need to tippy toe around completely capable people who have a problem and treat them like children. But only if they are on the left end of the right side. They don't tippy toe around women who've been scarred by the abortion experience, or families of drug addicts who want stricter laws, or vicitms of drunk drivers.

I've loved Fox's TV role as the conservative son in a liberal family in Family Ties, and his movies. Didn't care much for the Spin City role and didn't watch it. But I've read Fox's book, "Lucky Man," and enjoyed it. The reason he does not make a convincing case for stem cell research in his book (for this reader and fan) is because he doesn't tell the whole truth. First of all, it's not illegal, and secondly, it is not the great and only hope for PD that he makes it out to be in the book. Third, he says antiabortion activists opposed embryonic stem cell use even though the embryos would be discarded (i.e., aborted). He never deals with the ethics of using what amounts to the destruction of a potential human, to allow experimentation, nor where it would stop when there aren't enough aborted and "discarded" embryos [and now cloned in this lastest flap] for all the lab jockeys who want to ride them to fame and fortune. Democrats continue to spread these lies, and the media continues to lie about what Rush said. I was listening. I know what the conversation was about.

• Fox admits in his book that he is a political advocate for Democratic candidates, that he opposed George W. Bush in 2000.
  
• Fox admits he is pro-abortion and doesn't much like right-to-life Republican legislators.
  
• Fox tells in his book that he has written an Op-Ed piece for the NYT criticizing Bush as governor of Texas on this issue.
  
• Fox ridicules the concept of "compassionate conservatism" because of stem cell research.
  
• Fox tells he gets a lot of media coverage for his personal lobbying activities.
  
• Fox takes credit for getting President Bush to allow federal funding to go forward for stem cell research (which obviously reverses everything you hear about it being illegal).
  
• Fox's distain for the President literally drips off the pages of this book--sort of like Andrew Sullivan is about the President on gay marriage. There is no other issue.

So tell me, why a radio talk show host who discusses politics and sports, and is a Republican, and supports Bush on most issues (not immigration, and not his failure to rally the troops on Social Security), tell me why Michael J. Fox isn't fair game on his show?

Fox writes on page 247, "I made a deliberate choice to appear before the subcommittee without medication. It seemed to me that this occasion demanded that my testimony about the effects of the disease, and the urgency we as a community were feeling, be seen as well as heard. For people who had never observed me in this kind of shape, the transformation must have been startling. This is exactly the issue that Limbaugh addressed--had Fox gone off his medicine to produce the political ad which, according to Limbaugh, didn't really address a stem cell issue.

Michael J. Fox, Rush Limbaugh, Parkinson's Disease, celebrity advocacy, embryonic stem cell research, fetal research