Shocking Michael J. Fox Ad in MO Senate Race

I understand that Fox is highly concerned about finding a cure for Parkinson's and his feelings towards stem cell, but if that above quote about not knowing the page-to-page content of the MO initiative is spot-on, I can say that I'm disappointed in him, but not surprised, given how entertainers (and yes, athletes in this case) lend their names to something that they haven't really read up on before consenting to do it. Dog, don't feel too bad or embarassed. It's common to assume that someone knows what they are supporting or non-supporting for. To not read it in full does leave some questions.

It shouldn't be that hard to sit and read an initiative or a proposal and ask questions about it before voting on it.

Are we, as a society, really that lazy in not reading up on stuff we think we know, but not know in full details?

FWIW, Fox was here in town at Drake U. stomping for the Dem candidate for governor.

 

What facts about stem-cell research are trumped because Fox did not read the Missouri initiative, the poster does not explain.

And the taunt about the "fact card" is especially rich. Considering the accuracy of claims made by the Bush administration and their sycophants the last six years, their fact card is not only absent from the deck, it's not even in the casino.

 

No offense taken. The full transcript can be found at ABC.com.

 

I mean a link to the piece. ABC.com is kind of a big place.

 

I'm not embarrassed. Maybe the sarcasm font didn't come through as clear as I thought.

This thread hasn't been about Fox since about page three. It's been another debate -- most of it noticeably absent of facts -- over stem cell research. And really, it wasn't about Fox from the start. Nobody gave a damn that Fox was standing up for stem cell research. What they cared about was that he was standing up for a Democrat.

 

Sorry about that. It's actually ABCnews.com and you're right, I did have to look around for a while.

But, here's the link:
http://abcnews.go.com/ThisWeek/story?id=2613377&page=1

 

Boy this Fox guy obviously has no idea what he's talking about. :

Stephanopoulos: In the ad now running in Missouri, Jim Caviezel speaks in Aramaic. It means, "You betray me with a kiss." And his position, his point, is that actually even though down in Missouri they say the initiative is against cloning, it's actually going to allow human cloning.


Fox: Well, I don't think that's true. You know, I campaigned for Claire McCaskill. And so I have to qualify it by saying I'm not qualified to speak on the page-to-page content of the initiative. Although, I am quite sure that I'll agree with it in spirit, I don't know, I— On full disclosure, I haven't read it, and that's why I didn't put myself up for it distinctly.

But I've made this point before, and I really am sincere in it, that anybody who's prayed on this, and thought about it, and really considered it and can't get their mind around or their heart around the idea of embryonic stem cell research, I'd go to war for your right to believe that. And you're right to feel that. I respect it. I truly do.

My point is, and our point as a community, is we have a very good and supportable conclusion that a vast majority of people in this country are in favor of science playing a leading role in making changes in the future and believe in embryonic stem cell research.

So we're just saying, know that we have prayed on it, too, and we have thought about it, and we are good people, and we are family people, and we are people that take this very seriously, and we're as concerned as you are.

And we've decided that we would like to take this step and to do it with caution and to do it with oversight and to do it with the strictest adherence to ethics and all of the principles this country stands for.

But, allow us to do that without infusing the conversation with inflammatory rhetoric and name-calling and fear-mongering. It doesn't help.


Stephanopoulos: Do you think there's any way to finally find common ground with people who do believe in the end that this is tampering with tiny lives?


Fox: Well, again, the point has been made that these lives are going to be thrown away, anyway. They are marked for destruction — thousands of frozen embryos that are a byproduct of in vitro fertilization. We have routinely, before this conversation started on stem-cell research, we have for years thrown them away.

And that's the other thing, you know, this idea of snowflake babies: We're in favor of that. The truth of the matter is that it is only going to account for a tiny fraction—


Stephanopoulos: Those are the embryos that are adopted and then brought—


Fox: Absolutely. Who would have a problem with that? That's fantastic.

But it will, in the end, account for only a tiny fraction of those eggs. And so our point is that the pro-life position is to use that — what up to this point is waste, of literal waste that is going to be thrown away — use it to save lives and to ensure lives for the future. I mean, they talk about unborn. Unborn kids are going to be born with diabetes. People are going to be dealing with a genetic predisposition to Alzheimer's or to Parkinson's or kids that are going to be injured, have spinal cord injury.

That those kids may be born into a world that has the answers for that. That's our position.


Stephanopoulos: You were just saying you're about to hit a pocket.


Fox: Yeah, I just hit a nice pocket. I should be calm for a sec.


Stephanopoulos: Good.


Fox: It's kind of like surfing, you know. You wait for the wave. And I just hit a nice wave I think.


Stephanopoulos: Well, I don't want to rile you up, but I am going to bring up Rush Limbaugh one more time.

Fox: There it goes!

Stephanopoulos: One of the things he says is that when you're talking about all these cures, you're giving people false hope and that it's cruel.

Fox: It's so funny. What is crueler, to not have hope or to have hope? And it's not false hope. It's a very informed hope. I mean, it's hope that's informed by the opinion of our leading scientists, almost to the point of unanimity that embryonic stem cells, because they're pluripotent, because they have the capacity to be anything, and, are truly— Will [it] be a straight path to victory? Probably not. Probably you'll have stutter steps along the way.

In fact, they just did some work where they found that it actually relieved the symptoms of Parkinson's in one test, but there some residue, some tissue residue that built up, which is not ideal. But two steps forward, one step forward, one step back, you know, it's a process, it's how this country was built. It's what we do, you know. It seems to me that in the last few years, eight, 10 years, we've just stopped, we've become incurious and un-ambitious. And hope, I mean, hope is— I don't want to get too corny about it, but isn't that what the person in the harbor with the thing—? (Gestures)

It's about hope. And so to characterize hope as some sort of malady or some kind of flaw of character or national weakness is, to me, really counter to what this country is about.

 

dog, point taken and I respect your take on it. I couldn't care less that he was endorsing McCaskill, but we know that many people will see that (Hollywood favoring Democrats) as an entirely separate ball of wax. Let's stay on the stem cell issue, since the transcript is up for reading (thanks again).

Jeez whiz. I don't know what to say after reading this transcript. :/

 

I like and respect Michael J. Fox. I really, really do. He came off as a super and genuine guy on both this and the Couric interview. I would never demean him as Rush Limbaugh did.

However, I don't know how you contend he really knows what he's talking about when he admits he hasn't even read the Missouri ballot initiative. Yes, I know he's campaigning for Claire McCaskill and not (directly) the ballot initiative, but if you think it's an accident that he just happens to be entering the political fray in a state where there's an embryonic stem cell ballot initiative, I've got a bridge to sell you.

His best point is obviously the one that many others have made...if the embryos are going to be discarded anyway, why not use them for good? But for those of us who aren't much fans of fertility clinics in the first place, it doesn't resonate. I hope everyone noted yesterday's NBC Nightly News story about premature births being up 30 percent since IVF took hold in America.

 

Actually, he's done the same ad in a number of states. And, even if he hadn't, so what? I'd feel a lot better about the whole debate if it was interested parties involved in the rearach and not Jesus babbling Aramaic about cloning.

 

I'd feel better about the whole debate if people would stick to the facts instead of tugging on the heartstrings.

 

Fox is obviously faking it ... and Stephen Hawking also won't sit up straight and stop talking with his mouth full.