The press has been full of reports on the latest hot topic on the election scene — stem cells. See, for example, this story at the New York Times.
There are three main points of the story in the past couple of days:
- Missouri has a ballot initiative on stem cell research funding, an issue expected to encourage more Democratic-leaning voters to go to the polls in that state.
- Michael J. Fox has been endorsing pro-stem cell research candidates in television ads, for which he has gone off-medication to tape, in order to better convey just how nasty Parkinsons disease can be.
- Rush Limbaugh has sought to discredit Michael J. Fox’s endorsements by saying that he was faking/acting/exaggerating his symptoms.
All three points are interesting to me.
On the first point — that the GOP has fought to block stem-cell research contrary to one of its faction’s pro-life agenda troubles me. I can understand those religious conservatives’ discomfort with where the “best” stem cells can be obtained, but I also think that we use the tools and material God has provided for us.
On the second point — I’ll admit that I’m a little uncomfortable with the idea of an individual seeking to make his/her illness appear more severe than it actually is for political gain… but I can see the value in finding ways to better communicate just how bad their illness is. That Michael J. Fox has gone off meds when filming commercials, testifying before Congress, etc. seems to be reasonably well understood and accepted by most folks aware of the situation.
However, it’s the third point that is really compelling me to make this post. One of the big stories-of-the-day for the past couple of days (Tuesday and Wednesday) seems to have been that “Rush Limbaugh says Michael J. Fox is faking”.
However, I happened to catch a bit of Limbaugh’s show Monday afternoon, while running an errand. Right around 2:15pm Eastern Monday afternoon, Rush admitted that he was wrong. He admitted that he had thought Michael J. Fox was faking on the basis of his looking worse in the ads than he has at other public appearances Limbaugh has seen him at. However, Rush also said that he had been corrected; that he now has been informed and believes that Michael J. Fox goes off-meds when making a public presentation about Parkinsons, which explains the discrepancy Rush was commenting about.
On Monday afternoon, Rush recanted and apologized, publicly, on the air. However, the headlines Tuesday and Wednesday have been of Rush having called Fox a faker.
I disagree with Limbaugh on many things, and I naturally distrust much of what he says. However, I’ll also give him the benefit of the doubt in that he can make honest mistakes, and that on at least this occasion, he sought to correct it. Yet, he’s being taken to task in the press even after he tried to make his correction.
That’s just not right.