There’s a new Michael J. Fox ad on stem cell research that supports Claire McCaskill’s campaign. Click over and watch it. It will take you only 30 seconds, and I promise I’ll still be here when you get back.

By way of response, let me first say that I think almost any kind of ad in support of a political campaign is fair game. If a candidate goes too far, the public will punish him or her. So while I find the Michael J. Fox ad crass, tasteless, exploitative and absurd, I fully support Claire McCaskill’s right to shoot herself in the foot.

The most distasteful aspect of the ad is the way it exploits Michael J. Fox’s physical difficulties. Fox is an actor, and clearly knew what he was doing when he signed up for the spot - no victim points for him for having been manipulated by the McCaskill campaign. The ad’s aim is to make us feel so bad about Fox’s condition that logical debate is therefore precluded. You either agree with Fox, or you sadistically endorse his further suffering as Fox accuses Jim Talent of doing.

This is demagoguery analogous to the pernicious and pathetic chickenhawk argument. The whole “chickenhawk” logic is that only people who have served in the military are entitled to have an opinion on military matters. Thus, the ideas of non-veterans don’t warrant a hearing and thus don’t need rebutting.

While Michael J. Fox (like me) has some skin in the stem cell game that most people don’t, that doesn’t give him any special appreciation of the moral issues involved with embryonic stem cell research. Sick people may want cures and treatments more than the healthy population, but that doesn’t make them/us experts on morality.

The ad’s disingenuousness also merits consideration. While Fox mentions “stem cell research,” the word “embryonic” is strangely lacking. Given that the entire debate centers on the ethics and morality of embryonic stem cell research, this omission is noteworthy.

AS FAR AS FOX IS CONCERNED, I feel bad for him. The ad is shot to carefully record the sounds of the spasticity brought on by his condition. It’s gut-wrenching to see the star in such a condition.

But it’s strange that Fox has so eagerly bought the promises of the stem cell research community. If Fox thinks that stem cell research offers him (or me) hope, he’s mistaken. Stem cell research, both embryonic and otherwise, right now represents nothing more than a promising theory. If it bears fruit, and that’s a huge “if”, it will likely do so too late to benefit Fox, me, and our contemporaries. In spite of the silky rhetoric of John Edwards-type politicians, dramatic medical innovations come slowly and take decades to pan out, not months.

Nonetheless, there’s no reason to doubt the sincerity of Fox’s position. He truly does seem to have convinced himself that embryonic stem-cell treatments hold an imminent medical cure for him. Unfortunately, medical science doesn’t work that way. Believe me.

One last note on Michael J. Fox. Unlike Fox, I’ve been a sick person all my life. Like most sick people who try to define their lives by something other than their illness, I’ve always recoiled at pity and even sympathy.

Personally, I find there to be something extremely disquieting about the way Fox has chosen to use his condition to bully voters into feeling bad for him and thus support his political positions. People know when they’re being manipulated. This ad with its heavy-handed emphasis on Fox’s suffering will succeed in making Fox an object of sympathy and pity, but because of its naked crassness, it will not be a political success.

As for Claire McCaskill, who has chosen to conclude her campaign in this manner, she will get no sympathy or pity from these quarters. Only contempt.

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