Fox "Responds" to Medication Accusation
Except he doesn't. In this story, he says his pills are working well, for which we are all glad. He definitely doesn't say whether or not he stopped taking his medication before shooting the deceptive ads. A doctor says his movements seen on tape were caused by the medications, but is the doctor Fox's physician? The story doesn't say.
Fox has admitted in his own book going off medications before testifying to make his appearances before legislative committees more dramatic. It is not unreasonable to think he did the same thing before taping his many partisan ads. It would be very easy for Fox to put the whole thing to bed by simply calling a press conference to deny that he stopped taking his meds before taping. So far, he has not done so.
posted by Wesley J. Smith @ 9:05 PM
11 Comments
11 Comments:
I agree that campaign commercials try to mislead the masses. Absolutely.
But I don't think it was inappropriate for Fox to withold his meds for a public performance. As the old saying goes, a picture is worth a thousand words.
Visualizing the effects of PD is something that is very, very crucial in this context. Most people have not seen the true effects of the disease or watch loved ones waste away. That is a vital missing piece that is just as important as bland facts because it puts the facts into the proper context.
The extreme involuntary shaking is a fact in itself. It is the effect of the disease. That is very important.
Besides, is there anything any different than when W Bush talked about opposition to ESC research and surrounded himself with children?
It's the exact same thing.
If you believe seeing Fox in the state he wakes up in the morning before his medication is too emotional and distracting, then you should also oppose Bush's emotional distractions as well.
Do emotional tugs dumb the argument down? Quite possibly. But it does provide the human context of all the decisions we make.
I'm not commenting on whether Fox's statements are correct, but since Wesley was concerned about whether or not Fox used his medications or not.
As for its truthood, again, I don't have to know whether Fox is telling the truth or not. Political campaign ads are full of distortions. It goes both ways.
I bet if you picked apart the response ad (the one with the celebrities saying "No"), you'll find all kinds of mischaracterization of facts. For instance, it calls the amendment making cloning a constitutional right. I haven't read the amendment, but I know enough about our democracy to know that statement is probably BS.
It goes both ways. Mischaracterization of evidence, sound bites, and dumbing things down to convince the uneducated masses.
Actually, Royale, you won't find those distortions. Amendment 2 does not outlaw human cloning, it legalizes it. It would permit buying and selling of eggs by paying expenses for eggs, and if IVF clinics, not covered by the law bought eggs, they could be reimbursed if they "donated" them to Big Biotech cloning researchers, and one man has put in about $20 million to pass Amendment 2. So, the ad passes the integrity muster in my view.
The good thing about alternate media and the blogosphere is that it forces all sides to be truthful. That will be good for democracy.
He can tell us, but hasn't so far. As I have written more than once here, I don't think it is deceptive, but it is sensationalistic designed to keep us from thinking. We are to "knee jerk" into approving his views.
I think it is deceptive if he is showing us a worst-case scenario and implying that that is the best current medical technology can do for him. I think that's very deceptive.
Lots and lots of people have to take medication for chronic conditions. That's nothing new and it's really not unreasonable. Should we let a diabetic person go off his insulin and show us what necrosis looks like, to give diabetes research a lift?
You do have a point. What if someone diabetes went on TV and fainted because they didn't take their insulin?
Royale, the dragging around of JD and Parkinson's patients by ESCR supporters was going on LONG before Bush met with/appeared with Snowflakes babies. By appearing with babies adopted as embryos, Bush is putting a human face on the other side of this issue. These are not intangible concepts we're fighting for; those embryos are real human beings who do not deserved to be thrown away or treated like mere genetic material for researchers.
Wesley,
I guarantee that if I read the full text of Amendment 2, I would find areas that I would consider distorted, mischaracterized, and conveniently omitted facts from the response ad. It almost just goes without saying that these campaign commercials should be taken with a grain a salt.
Bumm39,
That was precisely my point. Seeing Fox shake violently puts a human face to this context.
The Amendment is what is so wrong. The ads that promote it try to hide it. Don't be fooled. Don't be bought, if you are a voter in MO.
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