Where's Tina Yothers?

David Weigel | October 24, 2006

Via Drudge, here's the least convincing response ad ever - a riposte to "Shakey" Michael J. Fox's pro-stem cell research commercial. It starts with Jim Caviezel talking Middle Eastern silly talk and goes rapidly downhill.

Surely, MJF hasn't felt so crushed since his best friend died.

Comments

|10.24.06 @ 6:18PM|#

Kurt Warner?

I drafted that asshat as my starting fantasy QB.

Kurt, you're dead to me. Dead! I cut your ass three weeks ago.

|10.24.06 @ 6:36PM|#

Poor women might be seduced by........money! That dastardly thing upon which we base our entire political lives!!! Now what is a white, upstanding woman to so when some brownie cakes can sell her eggs for money? I swear, Margaret, if one of them poor women gets uppity, so help me God.

Also, Kurt Warner asks why it takes $28 million to run a campaign. Uh, you're in Missouri, Kurt. Things hafta be splained vary vary slowlike.

Matt|10.24.06 @ 6:57PM|#

What the hell was Caviezel saying, anyway? Which ad producer thought it'd be a good idea for him to open an ad with some foreign language phrases that the broader electorate won't understand?

Perhaps they'll hire Tony La Russa to say something in Italian next time.

|10.24.06 @ 7:10PM|#

I think he said:

"I'm not Jesus of Nazereth, King of the Jews, Savior of all humanity, but I play one on TV."

|10.24.06 @ 7:34PM|#

I always thought the argument that you can't offer poor people money for things because it takes advantage of them to be odd. How can it be wrong to give someone something they need in exchange for something they don't? If the procedure is so risky as to make this practice immoral, how can we justify subjecting volunteers to it?

|10.24.06 @ 7:42PM|#

Amazingly enough, this is not the most obnoxious example of self-congratulatory celebrity politicking I've seen this year.

This is...

Gimme Back My Dog|10.24.06 @ 7:43PM|#

joe,

If you drafted Warner any earlier than the tenth round, then I definitely want you in my fantasy league next year.

|10.24.06 @ 7:54PM|#

Uhhh....what in the hell was Caviezel doing at the start of that ad? Who thought that would be a good idea? It seems like all that accomplishes is to distract you from the message of the ad while you're trying to figure out why it started with a man speaking gibberish.

|10.24.06 @ 7:56PM|#

From a commenter on YouTube, regarding what Caveziel was saying:

"I am Jesus Christ, and I approved this message."

|10.24.06 @ 7:57PM|#

Why is Patricia Heaton the only one idenfified by anything more than her name?

|10.24.06 @ 7:59PM|#

"Why is Patricia Heaton the only one idenfified by anything more than her name?"

Cuz most people in Missouri know who the local/regional sports celebs are.

I'm sad to see Jeff Suppan there, but I still hope he beats the snot out of Detroit tomorrow night.

|10.24.06 @ 8:00PM|#

Yeah, what is this crap? Government funding of medical stuff -- only an idiot would be against that! Tax dollars should be doled out for all sorts of research, but especially the sort of research that George W. Bush doesn't like.

|10.24.06 @ 8:29PM|#

"Uh, you're in Missouri, Kurt. Things hafta be splained vary vary slowlike."

HEY! well,...okay, that may be true for those from missour-"uh".

|10.24.06 @ 8:37PM|#

Dave,

Everything the GOP is doing is an attempt to turn out their base, because they know the Democrats are going to turn out, and they've given up on the moderates. This is an ad pitched at people who really, really liked The Passion of the Christ.

Gimme Back My Starting Quarterback,

I went to the championship last year. In my defense, Warner was highly touted in the off season, with Boldin and Fitzgerald, and a quality running game. When I got to the fourth round, he was my best hope for a big game QB.

Hindsight is 20/20, but when you pick the QB tandem of Kurt Warner and Chris Simms, it drops at 17/17 at best.

|10.24.06 @ 8:45PM|#

"Yeah, what is this crap? Government funding of medical stuff -- only an idiot would be against that! Tax dollars should be doled out for all sorts of research, but especially the sort of research that George W. Bush doesn't like."

Well sure, and particularly in the areas of stem cell research they're arguing over. The private company that is able to use stem cells to cure Parkinsons or whatever is going to make a freakin' fortune, meaning that the private industry is either racking their collective brains trying to make it happen or have given up on it.

Still, this is a case where one side is at least being consistent (conistently wrong but consistent), while the other is being disingenuous. This isn't about arguing against public funding for medical treatments, this is about arguing against public funding for this specific medical treatment that they don't like. More to the point, they aren't against public funding to cure these diseases, they're against the method being used.

|10.24.06 @ 8:55PM|#

Oh, joe, Chris Simms? What bad luck. I thought he'd shake off his bad start, but it's hard to play when you lose your spleen :(

Paul|10.24.06 @ 9:26PM|#

Poor women might be seduced by........money!

Yeah, no shit. I'd be seduced by money too-- it's just that no one seems to be interested in seducing me with it. How does one get into a position where they can be seduced by money? I want that career.

|10.24.06 @ 9:29PM|#

Ugh. Is that gormless bitch Patricia Heaton purposely and systematically going through The List Of Things That Piss Me Off? Despite the fact that I never watched that godawful sitcom and only learned her name last month by sheer will-less osmosis, I'm slowly becoming more and more convinced that she's my nemesis in this universe. My Lex Luthor, if you will.

And if Jesus is so powerful, how come He can't make it so that I can watch "The Thin Red Line" without getting depressed over how much Caviezel's career sucks now? He was in a Jennifer Lopez movie, for chrissakes. No wonder God struck him with lightning while he was up on the cross. TAKE A HINT, JIM!

|10.24.06 @ 9:42PM|#

Don't feel too bad, Pro Lib.

Lamont Jordan is everything I could have hoped for in a #%^%#@! piece of *^$% Number #$@&%^$# Two *#&^%$%# pick.

|10.24.06 @ 10:35PM|#

how come He can't make it so that I can watch "The Thin Red Line"...

I hated that movie. Lame, lousy, poorly written, badly acted and directed by a guy who hasn't made a decent movie since Badlands...and that wasn't even that good.

The Wine Commonsewer|10.24.06 @ 10:39PM|#

I voted no on the California proposistion to spend 6 billion on stem cell research because as a libertarian I believe that it isn't the government's job to tax people to pay for pet research schemes.

Is that even a libertarian postion any more?

|10.24.06 @ 10:54PM|#

joe, you should've known what to expect from someone named after Lamont Sanford. Now if his name were Fred Jordan, you'd have had something there.
[Insert Quincy Jones on the sax]

|10.24.06 @ 11:12PM|#

Federal funding bans hinder research more than you think. It doesn't just mean state/federal funds can't be used in reasearch. It means that all lab equipment that has already been purchased, partially with state/federal funds, cannot be used. The lab space can't be used, same goes with the cetrifuges, same goes with any random bit of lab equipment that is not cost effective for one line of research, but when the fixed costs are spread over many different lines of research are cost effective.

Rather than funding bans, not allocating money to those lines of research is a better alternative. Funding bans turn potentially profitable avenues of research into unprofitable ones by virtue of the significant additional (and unecessary) costs that are added.

|10.24.06 @ 11:20PM|#

It means that all lab equipment that has already been purchased, partially with state/federal funds, cannot be used

Mo translation 3000: "We have already spent so much money on wasted programs it would be a sin not to waste more. Remember to vote democrat."

Xanthippas|10.24.06 @ 11:40PM|#

The ad really just isn't that great. It looks cheap, and is a little over the top.

|10.24.06 @ 11:57PM|#

No, TWC, I agree with you. But you have to pick your battles. Spending money on medical research of any form is better than pissing it away on something else.

|10.25.06 @ 1:23AM|#

Pro --

Actually, Quincy Jones was a trumpet player (before hitting the big time as an arranger and producer).

|10.25.06 @ 1:57AM|#

Joshua: "Remember to vote democrat."

I know how to vote for a Democrat; I know how to vote Democratic. Do you know how to vote literate?

Stop adverbing nouns.

|10.25.06 @ 7:56AM|#

Do you know how to vote literate?

Hey, and you stop adverbing adjectives.

|10.25.06 @ 8:27AM|#

joshua,
Wrong. My comment was that not allocating money to the research keeps the spending down. Funding bans, a different beast, makes potentially profitable research avenues unprofitable because any institution that accepts federal funds must build new facilities for those lines of research. This is because they cannot take advantage of economies of scale or excess capacity that already exists.

|10.25.06 @ 8:33AM|#

Maybe if stem cells were linked to performance enhancement, these dumb jocks would be squawking a different tune.

And here that distant thud? That's the sound of Heaton's future in Hollywood. She's probably permanently typecasted anyway so she's cashing it all in for a fundy speaking job. She'll have a road show called "Everyone hates me (except JAYSUS)"

And speaking of Jaysus, if the fundies are using Caviezel, then the opposition should dig up Willem DeFoe, and in costume this time.

|10.25.06 @ 8:41AM|#

Also, by the way, Caviezel is mumbling "A boring ass in the shack". Maybe he was talking about Mary Magdalene.

|10.25.06 @ 8:46AM|#

Ahhh, just check out Rush Limbaugh's take on the Michael J. Fox commercial. All I can say is, "But You ARE In That Chair!!"

The Wine Commonsewer|10.25.06 @ 10:02AM|#

Spending money on medical research of any form is better than pissing it away on something else.

Brad, a pragmatic approach to be sure. I might go that way for existing revenues but certainly not for new spending.

|10.25.06 @ 10:04AM|#

"joe, you should've known what to expect from someone named after Lamont Sanford."

Hey dummy, stop running into your tackles!

Baylen|10.25.06 @ 10:11AM|#

Caveziel, via Babelfish's Aramaic translator:

One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight! Caveziel! Schlemazl! Hasenpfeffer Incorporated!

|10.25.06 @ 12:01PM|#

The anti-Christian viciousness of these posts reveal a "libertarianism" so angered by a moral position against commerce, that in violation of its own tenents it rushes to defend an alliance between governments and favored privately-owned businesses. Apparently, Kelo v New Britan needed only to benefit Merck to win Reason approval!

The sneering reference to "Middle Eastern silly talk" is digusting, of course and just another reason I'm happy my subscription to this misnamed magazine lapsed in '89. You ain't getting better with age, kiddos.

|10.25.06 @ 2:23PM|#

The sneering reference to "Middle Eastern silly talk" is digusting."

First, it's "Middle Eastern gobbledygook," not silly talk.

Second, you aren't offended by the deniable use of Jesus Christ in a TV commercial, yet you have a moral stance against certain commerce? Fascinating. It sounds more like you've merged your politics with your religion, which is the reason many libertarians hate this advertisement. If you say: should government subsidize Merck's R&D, they would probably say no (though that might not be entirely true). If you say, stop killing microscopic organisms that hardcore Christians believe should be treated like grown adults because progress just isn't worth the risk of sinning against God, you'll get a backlash.

|10.25.06 @ 2:51PM|#

Ethan, while "literate" certainly can be an adjective, in the phrase, "to vote literate", the word literate modifies the intransitive verb vote; it is therefore an adverb in that context.

|10.25.06 @ 2:55PM|#

I like the idea of Fred Sanford as a head coach. "What? Incomplete pass? Elizabeth, this is the big one! I'm coming to you, baby!"

He could also pontificate upon the ugliness of a referee when disputing a call :)

Quincy didn't play the sax in the song? I know he wrote it and was involved in the performance. I wonder who the sax player was?

|10.25.06 @ 5:47PM|#

Lamar, check the top of the string. The phrase Weigel used was "Middle Eastern silly talk". Practice reading for content.

I certainly do have moral objections to certain type of commerce but I have no idea why you think that should result in my being offended at the "deniable use of Jesus Christ in a TV commercial".

As for a libertarian backlash against the merging of religion and politics, of course the makers of this commercial will get that. But they're looking for votes from those who recognize some of the last words of Christ and consider them meaningful, not from those who would sneer at them as "silly talk".

As for the alternative argument-that the US government shouldn't be financing drug company research, no doubt the Missouri opponents are making that argument as well, but I would have certainly thought Reason magazine would. Guess not.

|10.25.06 @ 7:17PM|#

Hat: I'm making fun of your offense at the phrase "middle eastern silly talk" by using something slightly more offensive. Guess I blew it. I fully agree with your third paragraph, though you appear to revere the fictional life and words of Jesus while I find them to be in the same league as War & Peace (and a damn good book that is). It also appears that we agree on your fourth paragraph, though your "guess not" signals to me that you disagree with my assessment that the "God-controlling-the-government" people are more repugnant to libertarians than the "Use-State-Money-To-Bring-In-Hi-Tech-Industries" people.

|10.26.06 @ 4:44AM|#

Someone should ask Kurt Warner why it costs $6 million a year for a backup Quarterback for one of the worst teams in football.

And Hatt forgot to sign his first name- Ass

|10.26.06 @ 6:04AM|#

First. What an odd collection of "stars".

Second. Did anyone notice Patty Heatons
delivery of her looney dialogue? Even as a professional actress, she seems to have a hard time delivering these gems with any sincerity. Where's the Raymond staff when she needs them for a re-write? Her performance on this stuff realy looks like "ACTING!".

Lastly. As an A/V student, I can't get over the outrageously cheap ass, ultra amateurish production value on this thing.

I actually find this to be the most offensive thing about this add. If each celeb just pitched in seventy bucks, whoever filmed this could have rented a basic pro camera, and some proper basic lighting and audio equipment.

Everything is blown out, the audio is horrible, with all kinds of room tone and echo (hello home movie). Oh, it's just wretched!

Jim Caviezel? Now there's just no explaining that on any level.