Michael J. Fox Explains To Rush Limbaugh How Not All Pill-Popping Gives You A Killer Buzz
Michael J. Fox has spoken out in response to Rush Limbaugh's recent accusations that he was exaggerating the symptoms of his Parkinson's disease in a political endorsement TV spot for a candidate who is in favor of stem cell research. Sitting down with Katie Couric—whom, we'd be remiss in failing to point out, would be the actor's mirror image were he to indulge his innermost businesswoman-drag fantasies—Fox explained that the problem was too much, not too little, medication:
"The irony is that I was too medicated. I was dyskinesic," Fox told Couric. "Because the thing about ... being symptomatic is that it's not comfortable. No one wants to be symptomatic; it's like being hit with a hammer." [...]
Fox told Couric, "At this point now, if I didn't take medication I wouldn't be able to speak." [...]
"My mother was visiting that day, was in the back room and she was saying throughout the filming of (the ad) — and she was talking to my friends back there — and she was saying, 'he's trying so hard to be still.' And so she was the one actually when the comments were made, she was the only who was really angry, and she said 'I can't even see straight.' I said, 'Mom, just relax, it's OK, don't worry about it.' But it's just not that simple. That's why we're doing this."
We doubt Fox's evocation of his angry, hurt mother will be enough to eke any more sympathy from Limbaugh than he has provided already in the weakly worded retraction on his website. To muster that kind of mea culpa from the recalcitrant radio host would require the kind of heartwrenching performance that only Fox's iconic TV mom, Meredith Baxter, is capable of, having mastered the craft of playing women who display heroic grace under nearly insurmountable pressures from countless, moving turns in Lifetime movies of the week.
