Conservatives have made high art of the act of fake balance. In their eyes, a monkey flinging poo is the equivalent of a Nobel Prize winning mathemetician because after all - they both breathe air. This “balance” is at the heart of Fox News, and it is this “balance” that allows partisan knuckledragger drug addicts like Rush Limbaugh to be treated the same as actual journalists.
Today’s example is in Missouri, where the right has put together a few conservative celebrities to do an ad against the Missouri stem cell proposition. In their eyes, this is supposed to “balance” the powerful ad Michael J. Fox has done for Claire McCaskill (as well as Maryland’s Ben Cardin). To them the thinking is as basic as you can get - he’s a celebrity, so they get some celebrities of their own. That’s as shallow as their brains will allow them to operate.
The reason why Michael J. Fox is in this ad isn’t just because he’s Michael J. Fox. It is because he is a well known personality whose physical health is actually part of the issue at hand here. This is obvious to everyone who isn’t a conservative but to see this would require brain power they’re simply not capable of. Mr. Fox is a high profile spokesperson not because those who support stem cell research were just looking for a pitchman like how Nike or Coke hires a celebrity endorser. Fox is at the forefront of this issue because every day of his life he has to live with the effects of Parkinsons. The celebrities in the anti stem-cell ad were just picked for their conservatism, celebrity, and opposition to the issue. It does not “balance” out.
Similarly, the much beloved Christopher Reeve (a personal hero of mine, I will concede) was an advocate for stem cell research not because the mythical stem cell lobby wanted Superman to front their efforts, but because - again - he was stricken with a debilitating injury that thousands of others have and hoped for stem cell research that might be able to cure or assist him and people like him. He and Mr. Fox are not playing celebrity pitchman. They have these diseases and injuries and use and used their celebrity to raise money and awareness for a cure.
Conservatives don’t understand this. They think that a bunch of celebrities in a (poorly put together) commercial is “balance” to a man with Parkinsons who wants politicians to kick start research into a cure.
The right doesn’t get it. They never will. They are incapable.
ALSO: What happened to “shut up and sing”?
AND: Kurt Warner? The guy was phenomenal from ‘99-01 but he’s pretty much out to pasture at this point.
I saw the anti-proposition ad, and it is amateurish and over-the-top, and basically ridiculous.
And by the way, I just wrote off Caveizel and Warner.
Sweet merciful crap! Cazicivel or whatever his name is actually speaks what I guess is supposed to be Aramaic in the start of this thing! All the fundam Jesus-freak wackos are gonna be creaming their jeans - they won’t understand a word of it but they’ll be ecstatic that Jay-sus himself is talking to them!
“Derka Derka Mespucha flichus. I played Jesus in a movie directed by a famous anti-Semite, so you should listen to what I think about science!”
Oliver, you just don’t understand Missouri, especially St. Louis… We are incapable of letting go. Kurt Warner is still a huge hero to the booboisie here, as are any other number of has-beens and never-weres. People will listen to Warner.
First, I love Warner’s penitentiary style headshot.
What’s more fun, though, is to read the YouTube comments from the far right fundie nutjobs.
The new line is that Fox is faking it by not taking his meds. The ditto heads know this not because they are idiots in lock step with Rush and Drudge, but because Fox admitted it …somewhere! I’d love to read/see that interview:
“So, Michael, what’s with the skipping on the meds?”
“Well, struggling to complete an interview while fighting debilitating tremors and slurred speech is every bit the hoot you might think. Dumping the meds just bumps the fun right to 11!’
Hey, if Fox goes out in the liberal MSM and uses his Hollywood big name celebrity status and his disease for partisan political purposes, he is fair game for equal blowback. You guys don’t like Fox being criticized, stop using him for partisan political purposes. That simple. Gonna talk the talk, etc.
When exactly did curing diseases become a partisan political purpose?
Dugger once again proves the truth of Oliver’s point.
Who the hell is Kurt warner? And why is he wearing an orange jumpsuit?
It looks more like a high school junior civics project.
“…he is fair game for equal blowback.”
Wow. So it’s perfectly acceptable to accuse Michael J. Fox of “faking” the severity of his illness with absolutely no proof but damn it, if you call the president a liar for distorting the facts to make a case for war you’re just a big partisan meanie.
That’s great dugs, just great.
“You guys don’t like Fox being criticized, stop using him for
partisan political purposes.”
Oh, so Michael J. Fox is being used?
Are you suggesting that Fox has no idea what he’s saying or what he believes? That evil dems forced him to sit in front of a camera and say what he said? He’s just a patsy? A dupe of the dems?
You’re an idiot, Dugs. A total idiot.
Oh and might I add, that if you don’t like people calling Bush a liar, I usggest you stop using him for partisan political purposes.
Kurt Wagner apparently used to play that Rugby game that you guys call football for no obvious reason.
Am I the only one who saw that and thought, holy god, the Republicans must be really strapped for cash. What did they shoot that on, a Super-Eight?
This is the difference with Democrats and Republicans. We see that Mr. Fox is an adult male totally responsible for his own decisions. Republicans see him as some sort of “gimp” or “cripple” that is being “used” by the Dems. You’ve got no respect for people, and it shows.
Actually the dems ARE using him as a dupe. I see it all the time in my line of work.
Someone comes up with a “cure” for something serious. Of course, they don’t run rigorous double-blind studies to prove it, they just trot out some model to say that it cured him/her with lots of nice marketing lingo. Then they charge $100 bucks for it, and of course, it won’t work for at least six-months, and if you forget one dose, you have to start over!
But people buy it…because they are desperate. And when you give them alternatives, (all of which have potentially nasty side effects, but may in fact FIX the problem), they get mad at the doctor and say we are just “pawns” of the AMA or something.
Hope is a powerful emotion in the desperate, and it takes a really evil person to profit from that hope when they know it is futile.
The democrats are doing just that. Taking a something that has not as yet been useful for anything, and trying to stir that up to get votes.
Make no mistake, I am a supporter of research both stem cell and missile defense (any lefties here that consistent?). But to play on the hopes of the desperate to gather a few more votes is despicable…
“Hope is a powerful emotion in the desperate, and it takes a really evil person to profit from that hope when they know it is futile.”
So let me get this straight, Pedro, you support stem cell research but anyone who suggests that the research might lead to something hopeful is “really evil”?
How consistent of you.
How can you support something that you know is futile?
Missle defense I can understand, but…
Since only a “really evil” person would ever suggest that missile defense might actually one day be useful for something, I guess we can now officially declare George Bush a “really evil”
person:
“…they just trot out some model to say that it cured him/her with lots of nice marketing lingo.
You mean like Vioxx?
Wow, what a group of folks who are not only right now C-list celebrities, but have never been better than B-list celebrities at best (Pat Heaton, Kurt Warner).
I should note that the only two of whom I had heard before this were Caveizel and Heaton, and Caveizel is more famous for his role. He is probably better known as “Jesus from that Mel Gibson movie” (you know, I almost typed “Mel Brooks” instead of “Mel Gibson”) than by his name. I’d even go so far to say that his mom probably calls him “Jesus from the Mel Gibson movie” than “Jim.”
“anyone who suggests that the research might lead to something hopeful is “really evil”?”
Paul (Frameone)
When even a gradual student in movie making places that many modifiers in a sentence, you know it is a failing argument. “It may….lead to something hopeful..” Paul you demonstrate exactly what I am talking about. You take something that “may” someday, be “hopeful” and turn it into a bugaboo that the republicans are single-handedly crushing out the hope of the chronically ill! Talk about playing on fear…and at the same time, you ignore the fact the republicans are supporting tons of stem cell research that are arriving at life altering cures today!
Yes paul, you and your liberal buddies are those “evil people”
Ah, Pedro, ever the useful idiot, accusing liberals of evil. I recall the scene in Revenge of the Sith where Anakin says that from his point of view, the Jedi are evil. Evil folks accuse good folks of evil, and since either side deems itself good, the whole charge of “evil” is pretty much just spouting a four-letter word.
…the republicans are supporting tons of stem cell research that are arriving at life altering cures today!
Can you name 3 for us?
Is there anybody here, anybody at all, so manifestly stupid that you cannot see Mike Fox is playing heavy duty partisan politics and using his disease as a weapon in that game.
That is exactly what is happening. And I’m sorry, if you are going to play mean partisan politics don’t go hiding behind your condition when somebody debates what you say or criticizes you. How typically progressive. Fox can say what he want and because he has a disease, it must be true.
Bullsh*t.That dawg won’t hunt.
How typically progressive. Fox can say what he want and because he has a disease, it must be true.
Nonsense.
Fox’s critics aren’t taking issue with what he had to say. They’re engaging in an ugly smear. They’re saying he’s faking. They’re saying, in essence, that he’s lying about his condition by portraying it falsely.
Where are the cons who are willing to take on Fox’s ad honestly?
Wow. Mr Fox calling attention to his disease, and supporting politicians who’s policies he agrees with regarding his disease, is ‘using his disease as a weapon’ and ‘playing partisan politics’.
Talk about playing partisan politics.
You do get an A for Trolling Effort tho Dugger. Not many people would be so brainless as to try the angle you just pitched.
I’ll actually agree with Dugger on the first part. Fox IS engaging in partisan politics, and his diesase IS a part of this. Honestly, I’m not sure anyone will dispute this. Fox was in a campaign ad. Any campaign ad is, by definition, partisan politics, so we should note that Pat Heaton, Kurt Warner and friends are too playing partisan politics. Fox’s Parkinson’s disease is a part of this, being as that it was visible.
However, the charge that Fox doesn’t really have a shaking problem, that’s baseless. THE PERSON MAKING THE CHARGE IS THE PERSON NEEDING TO PROVE THE CHARGE. And saying that Fox is an actor is NOT proof of this.
There’s fair game, and there’s baseless accusations.
Like Diamond said, of course he’s playing partisan politics, it’s a campaign ad. Duh. He is in fact allowed to do this. It’s hardly “mean” partisan politics, Dugger, that’s a smear - it’s perfectly reasonable partisan politics - even faultlessly polite (”that’s why I support Ben Cardin for the senate, and why I respectfully ask you to do the same” - you’d never hear anything like that on a Lieberman ad).
And okay, his illness - which he never actually mentions directly in any of the three ads I’ve seen - works to underscore, or illustrate the point he’s making. But none of the ads are actually about the illness.
What everyone else is doing is attacking him for milking it. Anyone who’d say something like that on national radio should be fired, in my opinion.
I can give you two off the top of my head that have cured thousands:
Bone marrow transplant using adult hematopoetic stem cells
Cardiac stem cell transplant for cardiomyopathy.
There, now I have doubled the number embryonic stem cell based cures given me by my leftist collegues…
According to you, pedro, dems are “evil” because they are:
“Taking a something that has not as yet been useful for anything, and trying to stir that up to get votes.”
Republicans use their support for missile defense as a reason why they’re better on national security.
But research into missile defense “has not as yet been useful for anything.”
So tell me why Bush isn’t also a “really evil” person.
I swear paul..you are absolutely dense. Are you still in your PhD program, or did they bounce you for your reading comprehension problems?
Let me put this analogy in missile defense terms for you paul, since that seems to be what you are perseverating about…
Lets pretend the NORKS have promised to nuke L.A. on Dec 1. And we, because we have a bunch of lefties around, aren’t allowed to nuke them first…but, if we get a missile shield up, we can protect all those fine upstanding angelenos. Now, the republicans come in and say “if you don’t vote for us, you are atomic dust, cause Paul and his leftists don’t believe in researching missile defense, Vote Republican!”
THAT would be the analogy. The democrats are taking people with life-threatening illness and promising that if it just wasn’t for the evil republicans, we could have all the stem cell research we want and we would have a cure…! Never mind that the republicans SUPPORT stem cell research (just not embryonic stem cell research).
Clear yet?
Well that has to be the stupidest retort you’ve thrown up in a long time.
Pedro, conservatives ARE saying vote Republican or the North Koreans will kill you — all based on research that, in your own words, “has not as yet been useful for anything.”
Here’s idiot Hugh Hewitt doing just
that:
Let me try to spell this out for you.
We have no timeline for the norks to destroy us. Yes, the democrats are weak on defense. It is not the same as having an axe hanging over your head.
Paul, look up “concrete thinking” in a good psych textbook…cause you are the poster child.
I take it you DID get booted from your PhD program….!
Actually the repubs ARE using North Korea as dupes. We’ve all seen it since the end of the Cold War.
Someone comes up with a “system” for shooting down a missile. Of course, they don’t run rigorous double-blind studies to prove it, they just trot out some rigged, non-real world test to say that it shot down a missile with lots of nice marketing lingo. Then they charge $100 billion bucks for it, and of course, it won’t work for at least six-months, and if you forget to pre-program one decoy, you have to start over!
But people buy it…because they are desperate not to get killed by the nuclear missiles republicans keep telling us all about. And when you give them alternatives, (all of which have potentially nasty side effects, like nuclear proliferation, but may in fact FIX the problem), they get mad at the liberals and say we are just “pawns” of the Islamo-facists or something.
Hope is a powerful emotion in desperate voters, and it takes a really evil person to profit from that hope when they know it is futile.
The republicans are doing just that. Taking a something that has not as yet been useful for anything, and trying to stir that up to get votes.
To play on the hopes of the desperate to gather a few more votes is despicable…
Not all stem cells are alike
BTW, Fox’s symptoms as presented in the ad are apparently a result of his medication and not Parkinson’s. Apparently the chronic use of of dopamine agonists results in such broad movements whereas untreated Parkinson’s leads to much smaller tremors and even immobility.
Another fun tidbit, Fox did a similar ad for Arlen Specter a year or so ago.
So much for Fox being a partisan tool.
BTW, kudos to Dr. Pedro for creating a new prejorative and arguably racist term for the North Korean people.
Keep that big tent up, there, buddy!!1!
Maybe Pedro is talking about these.
You know, “norks” means something very different where I come from.