Down in the Mud

"Rush Limbaugh should be royally ashamed of himself.

"In a shocking display of insensitivity, not to mention gracelessness and incivility, Limbaugh accused actor Michael J. Fox, who carries on a daily battle with Parkinson's disease, of exaggerating the symptoms of the disease in several political commercials for Democratic candidates:

"To Rush Limbaugh on Monday, Michael J. Fox looked like a faker. The actor, who suffers from Parkinson's disease, has done a series of political ads supporting candidates who favor stem cell research, including Maryland Democrat Ben Cardin, who is running against Republican Michael Steele for the Senate seat being vacated by Paul Sarbanes.

" 'He is exaggerating the effects of the disease," Limbaugh told listeners. "He's moving all around and shaking and it's purely an act. . . . This is really shameless of Michael J. Fox. Either he didn't take his medication or he's acting.'...

"Limbaugh must have realized how extraordinarily stupid and insensitive his remarks were because he apologized for them later in the show. What possible good that did except highlight the broadcaster's utter contempt for common decency is beyond me. Apologies don't get it done in this case."

But Rush unearthed video in which Fox told Diane Sawyer that sometimes he doesn't take his medication before public appearances, such as his 1999 testimony before Congress, so people can get a true picture of the disease. Limbaugh also said that journalists have misrepresented his argument:

"They could have heard what I said, but they don't listen. They simply get their reports from the AP or whoever, but if they listen to this program, there's no way they could report on it the way they have -- well, take that back. Yes, there is an action line to every story in the media. I am a story to the media, and thus I have an action line. The action line is, I personify -- I'm the poster boy -- for all of the negative stereotypes that they have created about conservatism, and anything they think fits that action line, moves it forward, they are happy to report, but what did you hear me discuss yesterday? You heard the discussion about stem cells versus embryonic stem cells, versus the controversy over federal funding."

Blogger Michael Yon is a former military man who goes to place like Iraq, which gives what he writes here an added punch:

"While our enemies have 'journalists' crawling all over battlefields to chronicle their successes and our failures, we have an 'embed' media system that is so ineptly managed that earlier this fall there were only 9 reporters embedded with 150,000 American troops in Iraq. There were about 770 during the initial invasion.

"Many blame the media for the estrangement, but part of the blame rests squarely on the chip-laden shoulders of key military officers and on the often clueless Combined Press Information Center in Baghdad, which doesn't manage the media so much as manhandle them. Most military public affairs officers are professionals dedicated to their jobs, but it takes only a few well-placed incompetents to cripple our ability to match and trump al Sahab. By enabling incompetence, the Pentagon has allowed the problem to fester to the point of censorship.

"My experiences with the U.S. military as a soldier and then as a writer and photographer covering soldiers have been overwhelmingly positive, and I feel no shame in saying I am biased in favor of our troops . . .

"The government has no right to withhold information or to deny access to our combat forces just because that information might anger, frighten, or disturb us.

"By allowing only a trickle of news to come out of Iraq, when all involved parties know the flow could be more robust, the Pentagon is doing just that. Although the conspicuous media vacuum can be partly explained by the danger -- Iraq is arguably more dangerous for journalists than Vietnam or even World War II, when reporters were allowed to land on D-Day -- some of the few who will risk it all are denied access for no good reason.

"This information blockade is occurring at the same time that the Pentagon is outsourcing millions of dollars to public relations firms to shape the news. This half-baked effort has the unintended consequence of putting every reporter who files a positive story under scrutiny as a possible stooge . . .

"The media are far from perfect. War reporters, like everyone else, get things wrong. Some of them, unsympathetic to the war aims, undoubtedly try to twist the news. But no coverage at all is even worse. It does a disservice to American soldiers. It is cruel to their families. It leaves the American public in the dark. If we lose the media war, we will lose Iraq, Afghanistan, and the entire 'war on terror.' "If our military cannot win the easy media battles with writers who are unashamed to say they want to win the war, there is no chance of winning the hearts and minds of Afghans and Iraqis, and both wars will be lost. And some will blame the media. But that will not resurrect the dead."