Limbaugh Outfoxed
By William Saletan
Washington Post
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 for 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 last week when Limbaugh went after his latest target: Michael J. Fox. The actor, who has Parkinson's disease, has been appearing in ads for candidates who support government-funded embryonic stem cell research. The ads promote such research as a potential cure for Parkinson's and other diseases.
On Monday, Limbaugh played one of the ads for his audience. "In this commercial, he is exaggerating the effects of the disease," he 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," he said. 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.
(The rest is here.)
Washington Post
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 for 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 last week when Limbaugh went after his latest target: Michael J. Fox. The actor, who has Parkinson's disease, has been appearing in ads for candidates who support government-funded embryonic stem cell research. The ads promote such research as a potential cure for Parkinson's and other diseases.
On Monday, Limbaugh played one of the ads for his audience. "In this commercial, he is exaggerating the effects of the disease," he 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," he said. 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.
(The rest is here.)
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