RUSH: I mentioned at the top of the program that the Democrats and the media are treating me again like a candidate. I’ll never forget the late great writer from Sports Illustrated Ralph Wiley, who during the NFL season when I made it through five weeks on ESPN before that fell apart with the Donovan McNabb flap, Ralph Wiley accused me of hijacking that NFL season. It appears I’ve hijacked this election, because the Drive-By Media is making it about me, as though I am on the ballot. It went so far as Bill Schneider taking approval polls of Michael J. Fox and me. And this is how it ran, last night on The Situation Room with Paula Zahn, she says to Schneider, ‘Michael J. Fox out there campaigning for candidates. Do you have any idea how those ads are cutting,’ hmm, Billy boy?
SCHNEIDER: Michael J. Fox is a very popular figure. We did a poll and asked people, do you have a favorable or unfavorable opinion of him, nationwide, 75% to 14 unfavorable. That is 75% favorable. We compared Rush Limbaugh, who was critical of Michael J. Fox though he apologized for his remarks, he’s got 26% favorable, 58% unfavorable, and even among Republicans, Michael Fox is better regarded than Rush Limbaugh.
RUSH: Well, neither of us are candidates, so you know at what means, Bill? (Raspberry). And it doesn’t matter. I’m not in this for approval ratings. Fox probably is. But I’m not. About this business of apologizing, I think I need to clarify that, too, because the libs are even misreporting that. They’re trying to say that I apologized to help convey the notion that I was wrong. Folks, I stand by everything I said, stand by everything I did, except I said I would apologize, I remember the quote, hugely and bigly, if somebody can prove to me that I was wrong in suggesting that either Mr. Fox didn’t take his medication or was acting a little in those ads that he produced. And of course his own book, which is not being mentioned by anybody in the Drive-By Media, he admits to manipulating his medication in order to appear more sympathetic in congressional appearances and so forth, which I also said I understand from his standpoint. When he said late last week that he was overmedicated, not undermedicated, that is when I apologized. I apologized because he came out and said that he was not under-medicated or off his meds or acting, he was over. And that’s the one thing I had not thought of. That is what I apologized for, but nothing else.
Mr. Fox keeps making an issue of his symptoms out on the campaign trail. This is yesterday in Ohio campaigning for Sherrod Brown.
FOX: I’m not supposed to speak with you until my symptoms go away. (Laughter.) Or maybe I’m just supposed to go away. But I’m not going to go away.
RUSH: Mr. Fox, nobody wants you to go away, and nobody has told you you don’t have a right to say what you think. All people like me are doing is questioning the accuracy of what you’re saying, which we have a right to do as well. You have a right to be wrong all day. You have a right to be wrong all day long on embryonic stem cells, and you can try to convince people all day long, but it’s not the fact that just because you’re suffering your symptoms that we’re going to be quiet about this when you’re wrong. When you’re going to tell people that Republican candidates are not interested in a cure for Parkinson’s disease or not interested in research that might lead to a cure, I can’t just sit here and let that go by. We did in the past because we felt guilty disagreeing with somebody who was suffering from a horrible disease. But there are promising areas of research in adult stem cells and cord blood stem cells, and even gene therapy using a virus that Mr. Fox’s foundation has helped fund that do show results. Embryonic doesn’t.
I’m just not going to sit here and let it go by uncommented upon. Nobody’s asking Mr. Fox to have his symptoms go away. Nobody is demanding that he shut up or go away, nobody that I know of, anyway, and certainly not me. By the way, have you seen the story in the UK Daily Mail where scientists have actually grown a human liver? Small size, about the size of a one pence piece. You know where they got the stem cells to make it happen? It wasn’t embryonic. It was cord blood. They got the stem cells from the umbilical cord of babies after their successful births, and they have successfully grown a small human liver. We’re light years away here from this becoming practical reality, but there is success, stem cell success, growing a human liver from cord blood stem cells, not embryonic.
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