Rush Limbaugh Takes on the Wheelchair Lobby

Rush Limbaugh has always had the courage to fight enemies no one else would dare to take on, but this week he launched his bravest attack yet against a group of people whose power has long gone unchecked: The Disabled. You would think handicapped people would be satisfied when we gave them all of the good parking spaces. You would think they would be a little appreciative for all the wheelchair ramps and the Braille elevator numbers (which I have yet to see anyone use) which have cost businesses a lot of money. You would think that after passing the Americans for Disabilities Act they would just say thank you and shut up. But they just keep wanting more.

Finally, Rush Limbaugh stepped up to the plate and said enough is enough. This week Rush launched the first salvo in his valiant war against the sick and enfeebled, by attacking an ad that Canadian actor Michael J. Fox produced for Claire McCaskill, who is running against Jim Talent for a Senate seat in Missouri. In the ad, Fox, noticeably suffering from the effects of Parkinson's disease, criticizes Talent for opposing funding of stem cell research. "He is exaggerating the effects of the disease," Limbaugh said, drawing on his deep reservoir of knowledge about medicine and pharmaceuticals. "He's moving all around and shaking and it's purely an act. . . . Either he didn't take his medication or he's acting."

Limbaugh said what many were thinking. Why do disabled people constantly feel the need to call attention to themselves? Why don't they do a better job of hiding their afflictions so that we don't have to see them, which just makes us uncomfortable? There was a time when someone like Franklin D. Roosevelt hid from the public the fact that he used a wheelchair because of his bout with polio. If Roosevelt had lived in the 19th century or in India, he might have been forced to become a street beggar displaying his affliction to earn a few alms. It is actually an example of our advanced civilization that we allowed him to have a proper job by shielding his disability from view. Now the 21st century has brought us the video version of the crippled street beggar, asking for votes instead of alms. I was horrified to see beloved conservative icon Alex P. Keaton in this condition, especially in an ad shilling for a Democrat. Aren't there FCC rules or network standards against this sort of thing? Now it seems as if the disabled not only have stopped hiding, they have to get in our faces.

For example, take the case of Democrat Tammy Duckworth, who is running for Congress in Illinois, and has appeared at campaign rallies with Fox speaking out in favor of stem cell research. She lost both of her legs in Iraq, and now feels the need to point this out wherever she goes. In every interview she goes on and on repeating the tired old story of how she lost her legs and constantly makes jokes about her injuries, telling one interviewer, who no doubt felt very uncomfortable, "I can't actually hold a soda between my knees in the car. It's really hard to use a laptop when you only have half a lap." Apparently, she has never heard the phrase "too much information." In one campaign appearance she even took one of her artificial limbs off and sat down, saying it was more "comfortable." Apparently, her own comfort was more important than the comfort of people around her. When her opponent, Peter Roskam, metaphorically accused her of wanting to "cut and run" from Iraq, she exploited her affliction by pointing out that she cannot run; at least, not very well. Of course, every Republican candidate has accused his or her opponent of wanting to "cut and run." Is it fair that Roskam is the only candidate in the country who is not allowed to use this carefully focus-grouped soundbite?

As Limbaugh pointed out when he continued his offensive on Fox the following day, people who are victims have attained a status of "infallibility" because ridiculing them makes their opponents look cruel. This is the same problem that Ann Coulter pointed out when she complained of not being able to savage widows and grieving mothers. As anyone who is familiar with the Limbaugh's and Coulter's style of debate, taking away their ability to ridicule someone is a very severe handicap, so to speak. "One of the tactics the Democrats have -- and they've used this consistently. They bring forth people who they think are victims for the purposes of exploiting them," Limbaugh said. "You bring forth a person who's suffering the disease, and you illustrate the disease and the ravages and the suffering on TV to create sympathy and infallibility, because you're not supposed to be able to attack somebody or criticize somebody in any way or in any regard if they suffer from the disease. It's considered cold-hearted and cruel."

But while Limbaugh has been accused of being insensitive and uncaring, in fact, he deeply cares about Michael J. Fox, which is why he hates to see him "duped" by Democrats who just want to exploit him to get votes, which apparently Fox didn't realize when he made the ad. He is worried that Democrats are "politicizing diseases and illnesses, damaging what has traditionally been a bipartisan effort at addressing and curing illnesses." Democrats started this partisan battle over infirmity by politicizing AIDS. They made it seem as if AIDS was an important disease when in fact it only affected gay people, a small minority of the population, which was why Republicans were not paying any attention to it at all. Democrats have a long history of politicizing health care by saying that everyone should have it, even people who can't afford it. Democrats offer false hope that stem cell research and health care (which Duckworth got for free from the government she now criticizes!) are going to make their lives better, when in reality it would be a lot less cruel to tell them to face facts and accept their afflictions as the will of God. Democrats want to play God by researching cures for illnesses and giving people access to health care using taxpayers' hard-earned money.

Rush also points out that Democrats are using diseases to exploit voters' fears. Democrats, he says, want "to convince voters that there is a political party who doesn't want the cure to ever happen, that they want people to get sick and they want people to die. It's no different than saying they're going to take all your money away by cutting your Social Security and kick you out of your house." In fact, most people will never get the diseases whose cures Republicans don't want to fund so they really don't have anything to worry about. It is a sign of desperation that Democrats have resorted to such fear-mongering. It's time that someone pointed out that very few people will get AIDS and very few people will end up like Max Cleland -- unless the Democrats win, which would make it a virtual certainty that terrorists would launch attacks against the United States, causing countless numbers of Americans to lose their limbs.

While most conservatives have been reluctant to pick on crippled people, there are some hopeful signs that this is changing. After a televised debate in Wyoming Rep. Barbara Cubin told her Libertarian opponent Thomas Rankin, who suffers from multiple sclerosis and uses a wheelchair, "If you weren't sitting in that chair, I'd slap you across the face." Although she didn't actually slap him in the face, by threatening to slap him she made an important, if small, stride in the battle against the hegemony of the handicapped. I'm sure there are many people out there, forced to park in a spot very far away from the supermarket while the handicapped spots lie empty, who would love to slap someone in a wheelchair silly if they had the chance. Unfortunately, there are very few brave politicians who are willing to stand up to the wheelchair lobby, which selfishly inconveniences the rest of us.

In the Declaration of Independence it states, "All men are created equal." What many liberals fail to realize is that equality ends there. After people are created, they go on to become very unequal. Some are smarter than others, some are better looking, some are richer and some have all of their limbs. Liberals want us to ignore this simple fact of life and go out of our way to help people who, through their own bad luck or carelessness, are less fortunate. I hope that finally, Republicans will follow the lead of Limbaugh and Coulter and be brave enough to say to all these victims who think they are more equal than the rest of us that we are tired of catering to them.

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Jon Swift, Rush Limbaugh, Michael J. Fox, Claire McCaskill, Jim Talent, Disabled, Ann Coulter, War on Terror, Terrorism, Tammy Duckworth, Peter Roskam, Max Cleland, Barbara Cubin, Liberal, Conservative, Media, Politics, Beltway Traffic Jam