Michael J. Fox showed up in another Dem's stem-cell commercial today-- for Ben Cardin in Maryland.

Only problem is, Cardin has a vote on his record against stem-cell research. Oops!

The Washington Post, predictably, slobbers over the ad:

The Fox commercial makes those ads seem shallow by comparison, said Paul S. Herrnson, a University of Maryland political science professor...

"It's why I support Ben Cardin," he says, lifting his hand to his heart. "And with so much at stake, I respectfully ask you to do the same."

I wonder if they'll look into the Steele campaign's evidence about Cardin's stance tomorrow.

Read Dean Barnett, who also has a lot at stake in this debate, on the Fox ads, here. He wonders today if Fox is manipulating us:

Specifically, regarding Fox, there’s something from his autobiography that merits a mention (HT: Leaning Straight Up). Writing about his first time testifying before the Senate, Fox said:

I had made a deliberate choice to appear before the subcommittee without medication. It seemed to me that this occasion demanded that my testimony about the effects of the disease, and the urgency we as a community were feeling, be seen as well as heard. For people who had never observed me in this kind of shape, the transformation must have been startling.

If you don’t think that’s manipulative and quite frankly outrageous, we’re just going to have to agree to disagree. It also begs the question, why did he make himself suffer? If his goal was to make a disingenuous statement about his condition, he didn’t have to refrain from taking his medication. He could have just taken his medication and pretended to be sicker than he was. After all, isn’t that in effect what he did?

If you want to make a statement about how important the future of medical progress is to you, it does seem rather ironic to deliberately deprive yourself of the benefits medical progress thus far has afforded you, just to make a point.

Steele's about 8 points down, but one poll found him tied last week. And, Geraghty's picking it as an upset for the GOP this year.

Donate to Steele, here. He'd be a great upset to snag.

Update: Jim Caviezel, Patricia Heaton, Kurt Warner and others get together to respond to Fox's ad. Click through to Jay Stephenson's round-up on this for all the facts.

Update: Rush is catching hell for alleging that Fox was off his medication for the ad. I wonder if Rush used the evidence Dean used, above. It's certainly something to be considered.

Update: Feel the Barnett Burrrrnnnnn!

Update: From a reader, one of whose relatives has Parkinson's:

I don't pretend to be an expert, but he gets shakey and termors when he TAKES the medication. (Without the medication, Parkinson's freezes the muscles - makes them rigid). The medication loosens the muscles, overdoing it, and thus causing the shaking.