Rush Limbaugh should be ashamed of his allegation that Michael J. Fox was exaggerating the symptoms of his Parkinson's disease during a recent TV ad for Gov. Jim Doyle.
But that's obvious, isn't it? What's interesting about this flap is not that Rush Limbaugh said something outrageously untrue—as he does that often—but that his ignorance is just the latest example of the disconnect that Republicans tend to have with problems by which they are not directly or personally affected.
Limbaugh does not have Parkinson's disease. I'd be interested to find out if he knows anyone who does. Anyone who has Parkinson's or has a loved one with Parkinson's—as I do—knows what the symptoms look like. Research on stem cells could one day cure this slow, degenerative ravaging of the motor skills.
Limbaugh doesn't know about that. What he does know about, however, is drug addiction. ""Lock ‘em up and throw away the key"" was once his philosophy on addicts. Then he was caught illegally buying prescription drugs. Did he accept hard time making license plates in the state pen for his crime? No way. Having now seen the light, he entered one of those liberal, softy, 30-day drug rehab programs and emerged with his health—though not his sense of irony—rehabilitated.
Besides Parkinson's, Alzheimer's disease is another disease afflicting millions of Americans—again, including a member of my family—that could be cured one day by stem cell research.
The foremost supporter of research to cure Alzheimer's is none other than Nancy Reagan, but her support only appeared recently. Mrs. Reagan was not the advocate she is today when her husband Ronald Reagan's administration was slashing funding for Alzheimer's research in the 1980s. It was only after she saw her own loved one cruelly robbed of his mind and faculties that she understood.
Vice President Dick Cheney sits atop an administration that favors a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage. Cheney is reportedly opposed to this amendment. It is a no-brainer that he would not take this position if he did not have a gay daughter.
Gay-bashing is practically a pastime among congressional Republicans, but when several prominent GOP staffers on Capitol Hill were outed, these same congressmen stood by them, despite the rhetoric about family and moral values. Gay conservative columnist Andrew Sullivan says Republican congressmen ""have this acute cognitive dissonance, which is a polite way of saying hypocrisy.""
This thinking is not limited to social issues. When Republicans were in the minority in Congress, they complained loudly and frequently about the tyranny of the Democratic majority. They were also furious at the amount of wasteful government spending.
However, when they got the majority, Republicans came to realize that they too enjoyed tyranny and irresponsible spending. Under their watch, a record number of bills were introduced without input from the minority, and the federal budget surplus of $236 billion in 1998 has turned into a deficit of $296 billion in 2006.
During the Clinton administration, the GOP railed against Clinton's attempts at ""nation-building"" in Somalia, Bosnia and Kosovo. But a few years later, they cheered President Bush's disastrous nation-building endeavor in Iraq and attacked the patriotism of those who opposed it.
Time after time, on issue after issue, Republicans have demonstrated that they just don't get it. They have their theories and beliefs, and then they bump into reality. The question is, how much more of this can America take?
On Capitol Hill, how many more gay Republicans have to be outed before the party realizes that its homophobia is not morality but bigotry? In Iraq, to quote a famous lyric about a similar war, ""How many deaths will it take ‘til he knows that too many people have died?"" Out in the states, how many more people have to suffer from Parkinson's and Alzheimer's before the GOP decides that saving these lives is important?
Maybe enough Republicans will be touched personally by one of these things that they will come to their senses as a party. But they better do it soon. People like Michael J. Fox don't have forever. And voters won't wait that long.
