Just when you thought Publicans couldn't sink lower into the muck, they outdo themselves.
Case in point: Rush Limbaugh attacked Michael J. Fox by accusing him of either going off his medication or purposely exagerrating his symptoms from Parkinsons when he filmed that powerful ad for Claire McCaskill, the Democratic Senate candidate in Missouri.
Here is the audio which I got from a piece from Crooks & Liars.
The audio C & L posts captures Limbaugh stating that he had received e-mails from listeners who state that it is well-known that Fox goes off his medication when he makes public appearances. These e-mails, Limbaugh states, confirms what he suspected and stated previously, which is:
"I stated when I saw the ad, I was commenting to you about it, that he was either off the medication or he was acting. He is an actor, after all."
At the end of the audio, Limbaugh restates that the ad is "exploitative by Claire McCaskill or Michael J. Fox."
While I can understand a person feeling uncomfortable watching Fox involuntarily writhe as a result of his condition, for Limbaugh or any Publican to accuse anyone - absolutely anyone - of being exploitive after the way their party exploited 9/11 is the height of chutzpah. But for him to go further and accuse Fox of acting or going off his medication, is, to quote the e-mailer who wrote to C&L, just plain despicable. But that's the Publican Party for you. I'm just waiting for this to become a talking point that gets passed around to fellow Stepford Publicans.
Update [2006-10-23 21:14:38 by John Campanelli]:: Over at TNR The Plank, William J. Weiner M.D., professor and chairman of the department of neurology at the University of Maryland Medical Center and director of the Parkinson's clinic there, says the following about Fox's behavior:
What you are seeing on the video is side effects of the medication. He has to take that medication to sit there and talk to you like that. ... He's not over-dramatizing. ... [Limbaugh] is revealing his ignorance of Parkinson's disease, because people with Parkinson's don't look like that at all when they're not taking their medication. They look stiff, and frozen, and don't move at all. ... People with Parkinson's, when they've had the disease for awhile, are in this bind, where if they don't take any medication, they can be stiff and hardly able to talk. And if they do take their medication, so they can talk, they get all of this movement, like what you see in the ad.
While Weiner reveals that his center received a grant from the Fox Foundation, I would think that he probably has some personal knowledge of Fox's present condition and therefore we can trust his evaluation.
I hope this answers some people's questions about whether Fox purposely went off his mediocation.