Michael J. Fox was on The Daily Show last night, talking with Jon Stewart about stem-cell research -- and about being attacked by Rush Limbaugh:
Fox: That's when it got fun. People think that's when it got bad for me, but that's when it got fun. When -- when -- when -- Rush Limbaugh -- gawd, I can barely say the name --
Stewart: So many of us have that issue.
Fox: But when he kind of launched his attack, it was just -- I just had this moment where I went, 'Oh my God. Is it that predictable? Is it that cartoonish, that you'd, like, attack the messenger in this way and not even deal with the merits of the science at all?
Stewart: It's absolutely that predictable.
Fox: It was that cartoonish. And, what was great, was that allowed me to then start a dialogue, start a conversation -- we basically hijacked the last two weeks of that midterm election talking about stem-cell research, which nobody wanted to talk about. And it was, was -- in spite of the fact that I was deadly serious about it, there was kind of a Merry Prankster thing to it ...
Stewart: You couldn't believe the theater on it. When you explained to your daughter about that, did you explain: "His brain works differently. It's diseased"?
Fox: That presupposes --
Of course, C&L had a role in publicizing Limbaugh's ugliness, and we too were delighted by the electoral outcome.
