Michael J. Fox on Stem cell research....

[Winston]

Originally posted by BeBro
I think it's nothing special since ill people are part of the electorate too.

That observation, I think it's fair to say, is not in contention. Nor is it the point of this debate. I would've thought you had picked up on that by now.

[BeBMan]

I would have thought you had picked up by now that in a debate with several participants it's not your business to determine alone what exactly the point of the debate is and what not.

[Winston]

It is, when you're implying that I disagree with an obvious non-issue like the one about "ill people being part of the electorate too". What exactly does that have to do with anything and why on earth do you bring it up here?

[BeBMan]

It's rather irrelevant to other posters what you think the point of the debate is and what not. Telling other posters all the time what the point is or not is a rather cheap way to control a discussion.

And to the electorate thing itself: I didn't imply you disagree with them being part of the electorate. I wrote it since because they are part of the electorate it's rather natural that they take interest in such campaigns and do even participate in ads, esp. when it's about an issue that may affect people with a certain illness. Healthy people do the same when they are interested/affected/whatever.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Originally posted by Oerdin
Why should the sick and injured not be able to advocate thier plight?

Cause he was backing the Democrat.

[Dinner]

Obviously.

[Darius871]

Originally posted by Oerdin if the Democrats get elected then Mexicans will flood into the US and one of them will **** your daughter,

This is frickin awesome if true - what candidate/org put up an ad implying that?

[Pyrodrew]

And in this corner...

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,225801,00.html

NEW YORK — In a response to charges by conservative talk-show host Rush Limbaugh, Michael J. Fox defended his appearance in recent political campaign ads, saying he was neither acting nor off his medication for Parkinson's disease.

On the contrary, he had been overmedicated, the actor said during an interview aired on Thursday's "CBS Evening News with Katie Couric."

"The irony of it is that I was too medicated," Fox told Couric, adding that his jumpy condition as he spoke to her reflected "a dearth of medication — not by design. I just take it, and it kicks in when it kicks in."

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,225406,00.html

Patricia Heaton — who won an Emmy for her work on "Everyone Loves Raymond" — is taking sides in the stem-cell research debate.

She’s put herself on the opposite side of Michael J. Fox, the much-beloved actor who’s been battling Parkinson’s disease since 1991 and is a firm supporter of embryonic stem-cell research.

Heaton is now appearing in a commercial intended to persuade Missouri voters to vote against Amendment 2 on their ballot.

Fox, in his own commercial, urges voters to support the measure and Democrat Claire McCaskill, who is running for U.S. Senate against the incumbent, Jim Talent, a Republican who opposes embryonic stem-cell research.

Many scientists believe stem cell research could lead to cures for Parkinson’s and many other illnesses. Amendment 2 would constitutionally protect any embryonic stem cell research in Missouri that falls within federal law.

If enough celebrities get together maybe they could lengthen the ad spots into a full sitcom?
Using the voice from the sitcom SOAP...
"This is the story of stem cell research, with Micheal J. Fox and Patricia Heaton. These are the Democrats... and these are the Republicans. And this is... Admendment 2 on your ballot."

//"Everybody Loves Raymond"

[Lonestar]

The video where Michael J. Fox slams Limbaugh smears.

[Arcite]

Some more perspective:

Brain Disease
The psychosis of Rush Limbaugh.
By William Saletan
Posted Friday, Oct. 27, 2006, at 7:49 PM ET

I once had a friend who listened to Rush Limbaugh three hours a day. He was a Republican operative. He sat in my apartment, wearing headphones, while I worked. He swore that if I put on the headphones for 10 minutes, I'd be hooked. So I put them on.

Inside the headphones was another world. Everyone in this world thought the same way, except liberals, and they were only cartoon characters, to be defeated as though in a video game. In the real world, my friend was unemployed and had been staying with me, rent-free, for two months. But inside the headphones, he could laugh about welfare bums instead of pounding the pavement.

I thought about that this week when Limbaugh went after his latest target: Michael J. Fox. Fox, who has Parkinson's disease, has been appearing in ads for candidates who support government-funded embryonic stem-cell research. The ads promote this research as a potential cure for Parkinson's and other ailments.

On Monday, Limbaugh played one of the ads for his audience. "In this commercial, he is exaggerating the effects of the disease," Limbaugh said of Fox. "He is moving all around and shaking. And it's purely an act. This is the only time I have ever seen Michael J. Fox portray any of the symptoms of the disease he has. ... This is really shameless of Michael J. Fox. Either he didn't take his medication or he's acting, one of the two."

Where had Limbaugh seen Fox? "I've seen him on Boston Legal, I've seen him on a number of stand-up appearances," said Limbaugh. He pointed to Fox's autobiography. Fox "admits in the book that before a Senate subcommittee … he did not take his medication, for the purposes of having the ravages and the horrors of Parkinson's disease illustrated, which was what he has done in the commercials," Limbaugh charged.

In the book, Fox tells the story of his life in the real world—the world his body inhabited, as opposed to the make-believe world Limbaugh saw on television. Fox describes how, during "the years I spent promoting the fiction that none of this was actually happening to me," he learned "to titrate medication so that it kicked in before an appearance or performance … I did everything I could to make sure the audience didn't know I was sick. This, as much as anything, had, by 1998, become my 'acting.' " When he came out of the Parkinson's closet, Fox recalls, he chose "to appear before the subcommittee without medication. It seemed to me that this occasion demanded that my testimony about the effects of the disease … be seen as well as heard."

Here we have two completely different notions of reality. Fox's job was to portray characters in movies and on television. For him, Parkinson's was an invasion of the fake world by the real one. The medication, designed to hide this from the audience, became part of the fiction. In going off his meds, he was dropping the act.

Limbaugh's life story has gone the other way. His job was to explain politics, a branch of nonfiction. But for him, the fake world has overtaken the real one. He thinks reality is what's on Boston Legal. Anything that doesn't match this must be "acting." If you go off your meds on purpose, you're not revealing your symptoms. You're "portraying" them.

Radio, television, and the Internet greased Limbaugh's descent into fantasy. Years ago, a profile described him "holed up in his New York apartment with Chinese take-out and a stack of rented movies." In another profile, he "complained that he has virtually no social life." Click the video links on his Web site, and you can peer into his world. He sits in a soundproof studio. He never has to go outside.

In Limbaugh's world, "there never was a surplus" under President Clinton. AIDS "hasn't made that jump to the heterosexual community," and cutting food stamps is harmless because recipients "aren't using them." Two years ago, Limbaugh said the minimum wage was $6 or $7 an hour. Last year, he said gas was $1.29 a gallon.

Limbaugh has particular trouble distinguishing reality from entertainment. The abuse at Abu Ghraib "looks just like anything you'd see Madonna or Britney Spears do on stage," he told his listeners. Last month, he defended ABC's 9/11 movie against the document on which it purported to rely: "The 9-11 Commission report, for example, says, well, some of these things didn't happen the way they were portrayed in the movie. How do they know that?"

Last year, Limbaugh, who used a tailbone defect to get out of the Vietnam draft, accused a Democratic candidate of having served in Iraq "to pad the resume." He charged several veterans—including former Sen. Max Cleland, who lost both legs and an arm in Vietnam—with trying "to hide their liberalism behind a military uniform … pretending to be something that they are not." When war is just another television show, a uniform is just another costume. Liberalism is real; losing your limbs is a pretense.

Which brings us back to stem cells. Limbaugh says Fox's ads dangle a prospect of imminent cures "that is not reality." He's right. But the ads convey another reality: a man dying of a disease that might be cured more quickly if the government dropped its restrictions on research funding. Limbaugh dismisses this as a "script" being followed by Fox's "PR people" and "the entertainment media." Script? Entertainment? This is life and death.

I have another friend. He has Parkinson's. I've seen him on good days and bad days. That's how I know Fox isn't faking it. My friend doesn't see the destruction of embryos as a dangerous price to pay for stem-cell research. I do. But if you worry about the embryos, you had bloody well better look into the eyes of the people dying of these diseases. You had better ask yourself whether slowing research that might save them is an acceptable price for your principles.

If you can't—if all you can see is "acting"—then you need more help than they do. Fox's disease can only take your body. Limbaugh's can take your soul.

A version of this article also appears in the Outlook section of the Sunday Washington Post.
William Saletan is Slate's national correspondent and author of Bearing Right: How Conservatives Won the Abortion War.

[Spiffor]

Originally posted by Winston
I feel the exact opposite is true.

Bingo. You feel.

It's an emotional statement of yours, and there's nothing wrong with having an emotional assessment over political matters. However, since you allow yourself to have an emotional opinion, don't lambast the others for using emotions in their campaign.

This is clearly a debate where reason is useless to change anybody's mind.

[Winston]

Oh, goodness me, learn to properly discern the nuances of the English language, will you. "I feel" in this context equals "I think". You stated an opinion, I stated that I hold the opposite to be true.

---

After watching part of Michael J. Fox's rebuttal, as it was posted above, I do think it casts further suspicion on the motives behind taping his original message in the condition he was in at the time.

But he's a sympathetic fellow, and I am quite overwhelmed by sadness at witnessing his plight, as well as thinking of that of other patients in the same situation.

[LordShiva]

Originally posted by Winston
and I am quite overwhelmed by sadness at witnessing his plight, as well as thinking of that of other patients in the same situation.

Me too. Sometimes, one needs appeals to emotion to fully grasp something - a cold, medical description of Parkinsons wouldn't have had the same effect.

[chequita guevara]

I love Winston trying to say anything about the American campaign process. He's so ignorant of how things work over here.

In TV campaigns NO ONE uses appeals to reason. Every tv campaign spot is an appeal to emotion.

BTW, lest anyone accuse Fox of being partisan for the Democrats, I would point out that he ran the same type of Ad for Republican Arlen Spector's Senate campaign two years ago. Where was all the right-wing outrage then? God damned hypocrites.

[Winston]

You also love to point out how, according to you, people in disagreement are always "ignorant". Not just wrong, but patently "ignorant".

You condescending prat.