Backlash

by digby

This is really starting to piss me off. The press continues to insinuate that Michael J. Fox is “raising eyebrows” and causing a “backlash” with his ads supporting stem cell research and there is no evidence that there is any backlash except in right wing talk show pig circles.

From Media Matters, here’s ABC:

ROBERTS: You bring up Missouri and a big debate about Michael J. Fox, of course, who is suffering from Parkinson’s, and he has really gotten into the race there, and raising a lot of eyebrows.

Really? Whose? The extremists who value a smear in a petrie dish over living breathing humans beings? Well, no kidding. They are on the losing side of a very important argument that could affect every single one of our lives. But is there any eyebrow raising among anyone else? I haven’t heard it.

I don’t remember anyone raising eyebrows at that smarmy Ashley ad in the 2004 election. In fact, I recall the press having a total love fest over it even though it was the crass exploitation of a young girl’s pain to make George W. Bush look caring and fatherly:

“The largest single ad buy of the campaign comes from conservative Progress for America,” Time Magazine reported. “It shows Bush comforting 16-year-old Ashley Faulkner, whose mother died on 9/11. As it happens, the spot was made by Larry McCarthy, who produced the infamous Willie Horton ad that helped the first President Bush bury Michael Dukakis under charges that he was soft on crime. If that is the iconic attack ad, this is the ultimate embrace—to remind voters of the protectiveness they cherished in the President after Sept. 11. The ad has been ready since July, but sponsors waited until the end to unveil it.”

“He’s the most powerful man in the world, and all he wants to do is make sure I’m safe.”

And from Josh Marshall I see this headline is up on CNN right now:

Michael J. Fox ads for Democrats spark backlash

The Republicans have no shame, but you can kind of understand it. They have to discredit the sick, the dying and the widowed and they have to hide the dead. They can’t let Americans see the effects of their policies. The press, however, has no obligation to help them do their dirty work.

*As Marshall points out, the article that accompanies the CNN headline explains why Rush Limbaugh is completely full of shit even as it says that he represents some sort of “backlash.” Why they chose to run that headline is anyone’s guess. Reflex, probably.

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