aTypical Joe: a gay New Yorker living in the rural South

Thursday, October 26, 2006

Katie, her dad & Michael’s privilege

LATER: The Carpetbagger nominates Kaitie’s old co-host Matt Lauer for the worst of all possible Michael J. Fox coverage.

Katie Couric had an exclusive interview with Michael J. Fox. Interesting how full disclosure works:

COURIC: By the way, in the spirit of full disclosure I think it’s important to mention that my dad has Parkinson’s Disease - he told me today it’s okay to tell you that - and in the past I’ve made contributions for Parkinson’s research through Michael J. Fox’s foundation.

I wonder what Rush will have to say about that? Damned if she do, damned if she don’t I’d say. Can you imagine if she hadn’t made that disclosure? Then there’s this:

Fox told Couric that despite it being tough to sit for interviews as his symptoms worsen, he feel privileged to be able to do so.

“Honestly, I mean, I really feel this: That you get in your life very few chances to make a difference. And I really feel privileged to do this that I get a chance to do this. But having said that, it’s not pretty. It’s not pretty when it gets bad,” Fox said. “I’ve learned to throw vanity out the window. I’ve had enough years of people thinking I was pretty and teenage girls hanging my picture on walls. I’m over that now.”

The stem cells are thrown away, he addressed the “slippery slope” argument, he called Republican Senator Arlen Specter “my guy” and said that “disease is a non-partisan problem that requires a bipartisan solution.”

Limbaugh can go ahead and pull one from the Coulter 9/11 widows playbook. Said he, “Democrats have a long history of using victims.”

Replies Fox, “I am not a victim. I am someone whose in this situation, I think I’m in this situation along with millions of other Americans and we have a right, if there’s answers out there, to pursue those answers with the full support of our politicians. And so I don’t need anyone’s permission to do that.”

For the record, I saw the Fox commercial the moment it was released. I thought it powerful but did not post about it. What the Right accomplished through its demonizing is to turn it into an issue I am following closely. Does anyone want to bet I’m the only American that’s happened to?