October 25, 2006--Rush (Limbaugh) to Judgement

Even if you just awoke from a month-long sleep you undoubtedly know that for the Democrats to take control of the House they need to pick up at least 15 seats and to win the Senate they have to gain six.

Most pundits, Republican as well as Democrat, pretty much agree that the House will tip, unless Karl Rove has a November Surprise up his sleeve. The Senate, though, is too-close-to-call. Also agreed is that the balance in the Senate is likely to depend on two-to-three races, including the one in Tennessee and the one in Missouri. So it is interesting and nauseating to look in on some of the last-minute TV commercials and the controversies that have erupted around them.

In Tennessee, the Republican National Committee had its intermediary flunky produce and run a TV spot that more than implied that the African-American Democrat candidate Harold Ford has lust in more than his heart for white women. It ends with a half-naked Playboy Bunny look-alike whispering leeringly, “Call me Harold.” The not so subliminal message—lock up your sisters and daughters if he is elected. This ad, hands down, wins the Willie Horton Lifetime Achievement Award.

In Missouri, voter support for stem cell research may lead to the election of Claire McCaskill, the Democrat, since there is a measure on the ballot that would amend the state constitution to protect all approved forms of stem cell research. Those turning out to vote for that measure, it is assumed, are more likely to also vote for McCaskill than her opponent. Thus, in support of McCaskill’s candidacy, Michael J. Fox, who suffers from Parkinson’s disease, made a commercial that is being aired in Missouri.

This in itself is not all that innovative—Republicans after all have been adept at including referenda about gay marriage on various state ballots to bring out their base. So turn about seems like fair play.

But I suppose that the power of the image of the beloved Michael J. Fox twitching and trembling from the effects of the disease, which some say might be cured through stem cell research, so frightened Republicans that they immediately launched a counteroffensive (see NY Times article linked below). In addition to ads of their own that attack stem cell research, with James Caviezel front and center—he played Jesus in Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ!--they also wheeled out heavier guns, most notably Rush Limbaugh.

He ranted about how Fox’s uncontrollable movements were in fact the result of “acting” since he didn’t take his medication, which reduces the tremors, before the filming.

Somehow, during this tirade, Limbaugh was being filmed by someone with a cell phone camera, and images of him quivering and shaking in mocking imitation of Fox quickly showed up on the Internet. It was so despicable, even for him, that he later apologized. Or should I say his Republican collaborators were so worried that it would be counterproductive that they got him to recant?

Better yet, old Rush, rather than doing any acting of his own, could have played videos of his own quacking and shaking when he went Cold Turkey as he withdrew from his addiction to Oxycontin.

Now that’s what I call Reality TV!