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Thank You Ann Coulter

27 October 2006

Before Ann Coulter’s book, Godless, the debate of the last few days would not have happened. Ann was responsible for opening up the debate and pointing out that Democrats continually put forth people to make arguments who conservatives aren’t supposed to question. Those who have suffered personal tragedy, in the eyes of liberals, are unassailable. And so it was supposed to be with Michael J. Fox. Except it hasn’t worked out that way.

For anyone who isn’t aware, Michael J. Fox has made several commercials for Democrat candidates in the last days of the campaign. The gist of these commercials is that, while Democrat candidates want to expand stem cell research and find cures for people like Fox, Republicans don’t care about him or others with horrible diseases so they oppose stem cell research. Like other’s in the stem cell debate, Fox lets viewers believe that all stem cell research is the same. He doesn’t differentiate between adult stem cell research and fetal stem cell research. He implies that Republicans oppose all stem cell research. He also never mentions that there is absolutely no evidence, not one shred, to indicate that fetal stem cell research holds out any hope for people with debilitating diseases. That in contrast to adult stem cell research that is already producing therapies.

I’ve written here and here about the problems with fetal stem cell research. But liberals believe that their pet projects deserve unlimited federal funding when the private sector has determined that there is little reason to invest in them. And Democrats have no problem exploiting people like Fox in order to destroy their opposition. It’s a combination of the “politics of personal destruction” that Bill Clinton perfected and the Jersey Girls phenomenon that Democrats so effectively exploited for so long. That is, until Ann Coulter blew the whistle on them.

If not for Coulter, Fox’s charges would have gone unanswered. No one would have dared to question Fox’s charges or his motivation because he has suffered a tragedy in his life. All that has now changed.

I, like most of you, have a lot of sympathy for Fox. He is a wonderful actor and we’ve all loved him in movies like the Back to the Future series as well as his TV rolls. Falling to Parkinson’s Disease is indeed tragic. But that does not give Fox any special insight into the merits of fetal stem cell research or politics. He is, like the rest of us, free to believe as he likes and free to say so and make commercials promoting his point of view. And like the rest of us, he is not immune to consequences of doing so.

On a morning news program Fox made two contradictory statements. First, he said he had no partisan political agenda. Then he said he wanted his side to have a veto proof majority, clearly a partisan political position. Again, Fox is free to have his agenda and he is free to promote it. But none of us should be fooled into thinking he has no political agenda.

We also should not be fooled by his misleading statements. Michael Steele has aired a very effective ad to counter Fox’s ad. Steele’s ad features his sister, a doctor, who suffers from MS. It’s pretty difficult for Fox’s characterization of Steele to be taken seriously in light of this little revelation.

The fact is, Michael J. Fox intentionally mislead the public for partisan political reasons. As Rush Limbaugh has rightly pointed out, Fox has admitted to going off his meds when testifying before Congress in order to make his symptoms appear worse. He wants to make a point and that is one way to do so. He now claims he took too much of his meds before making the current round of commercials. So Fox is intentionally making his condition look as bad as possible in order to sway voters to his political position. He is exploiting his condition for partisan political gain!

It appears that the Fox commercials may have backfired. They seem to have been removed from the rotation. Whether the commercial featured here a couple of days ago with Patricia Heaton, Jim Caviezel, Kurt Warner and others setting the record straight or the Michael Steele commercial or Rush’s rebuttals or all of the above were responsible, the ads are off the air. Ann Coulter opened the door and she deserves a lot of credit for the response. No longer can those with personal tragedy exploit that tragedy with impunity. All of us should be accountable for what we say and do and personal tragedy doesn’t negate that. Thanks to Ann Coulter, it no longer does. Thanks Ann!