Rush's Bum Rap (Cavuto)

FOX News ^ | 10/13/03 | Neil Cavuto

[alisasny]

Neil has MS and has addressed his condition on his show and the FACT that he is in a wheelchair and that he will never be a poster boy to the MS organization just because he has this horrible disease.

[madison10]

Neither did Rush. Give us a quote(s).

[Libertina]

Yeah Neil! BTTT God bless, Rush - get well, return soon, and we love you!
RUSH LIMBAUGH BUMP

[EggsAckley]

WOW! I had NO idea. What a great guy!

Thanks!

[abnegation]

Neil has MS (multiple sclerosis).

[Don Munn]

I believe Neil has MS or Parkinsons.

He doesn't discuss it often but did bring it up when Michael J. Fox spoke of his Parkinsons.

[stevem]

I've had migraine headaches that seem to attack at the most inopportune times. I've had them all my life, starting at least at the age of five. When they properly attack, they provide the most blinding screaming torture I ever feel or hope to feel.

I've tried prescription medication to stop it. The prescription medication fails and miserably. I have a couple of things that seem to work, but part of it isn't considered conducive to good health. I don't especially care. I just want the hurt to stop.

I can relate that to what Rush must have gone through. I take my home cooked concoction regardless. If the prescription pain killers had worked, I would blissfully move heaven and earth to get my hands on them with or without a doctors blessing. I can't know this first hand, but sometimes think people that say otherwise have never experienced any real hurt.

The downside, of course, is the lack of control on the pharmacy may deduct years from your life. So, maybe I'm the lucky one, and Rush has some obstacles to overcome. I sure want him to succeed in this effort.

[Joe Boucher]

I bought a hobie cat sail boat from a charitable organization in west palm beach a few years ago. There were many fine treasures at the place and when I asked about much of it the caretaker told me that many of the best things there were from Rush Limbaugh. He frequently redecorated or was given new things and regulary he would donate very nice things to this charity.
NOthing spectacular but an honest account about the man.

Also I have taught my son to sail on the hobie.

[chiller]

How the hell do you know this wasn't pain management? I happen to be confident it was.

Re: Rush's stand on drugs; He has never been critical of those who become addicted to legal prescribed drugs taken to alleviate pain. Other cases of drug abuse, perhaps, but none like his....just for the record.

[alisasny]

Cavuto returns the compliment, praising Ailes for his matter-of-fact acceptance of his MS diagnosis.

After breaking the news to Ailes, Cavuto, who manages a staff of about 30, told his own troops.

"I told my staff, 'Look, you may notice some things. There might be some days when I'm walking with a cane or in the hospital, sporadically. I don't know where it will go ... so I just take it one day at a time.'-"

Cavuto, who has lived for nearly a decade in Chester with his wife, Mary, and 17-year-old daughter, Tara, takes a weekly dose of the drug Avonex to slow the progression of the disease and uses a treadmill to "keep those legs going." He says he has good days, bad days, and very, very bad ones.

"It's a weird type of illness," he says. "When it's very, very bad, you can't walk or, at best, you really need a cane, but when it's OK, it's OK. You live with a degree of pain and discomfort."

Cavuto neither hides nor draws attention to his illness.

"I don't think I should be a platform or a cause," Cavuto says. "The way I can help people, hopefully, is to illustrate me trying to do my job and doing it the best way I know how, with a smile and a joke."


© Copyright 2002 Bergen Record Corporation

[StatesEnemy]

Ohh puleease...

I'm an ass because I comment on the fact that someone who daily extoles the fact that he's a "man you can trust in a Motel 6 with your wife or your daughter" cannot be trusted in my bathroom medicine cabinet?

[EggsAckley]

Send Rush your recipe!

</;o)

[Let's Roll]

You all keep saying that - because of my job I listen to him almost everyday and I just don't remember Rush going on about the WOD - the French looking vietnam veteran, golf, football, yes, but not the WOD.

And yes put me in the column that sees a difference between getting hooked because of painkillers and getting hooked for kicks and spare me the emotional and mental pain of those who got hooked for kicks or that oxycontin is synthetic morphine "just like heroin" yada, yada.

[dts32041]

Do you think neil and Charles Krauthammer, will ever pop wheelies on TV Together, now I would pay a dollar to see that.

BTW I did not know about the wheel chair.

I can think of no other network that would give wheel chair bound people, the exposure these two get on Fox.

Others talk the talk, Fox walks the walk.

[Don Munn]

I see you have a real problem with Rush, from your prior postings.

That doesn't mean you have to keep reminding us on every thread.

[SeeRushToldU_So]

Downey didn't go on air and defend the War on Drugs week after week. That's a big difference

As you can tell by my name, I am a big fan of Rush's. And you, sir, are so very wrong.In fact I can't recall Rush even talking about drugs or the War On Drugs in years.

But if you have proof, cough it up.

[chiller]

I too have missed nary an hour since Rush began. Backing up your statement that Kiss Me Hardy is as wrong as he can be.

People blabbing on and on when they have no clue is at the top of my despicable list.

[alisasny]

another article on NEIL:


The Volatile Market Of Fox's Rising Anchor Neil Cavuto
NEW YORK -- Every so often, Neil Cavuto erupts on the air. "We've been dissed again," the Fox News business anchor told viewers after Microsoft executives refused to come on to discuss an alliance with Verizon. "I think I'm getting the shaft here. . . . If you're as ticked off about this as I am, you're free to let the company's interview coordinator know," he said, reciting her name, phone number and e-mail address. As for Microsoft, he declared: "If you hate me or Fox, just say so. You don't have to give me bogus excuses."

Asked about the outburst, Cavuto says: "I flipped a gasket." As for another commentary in which he assailed CNN's Lou Dobbs, he says: "I'm Italian. I got angry."

Cavuto is just as critical of "simplistic coverage," saying that the past week's dramatic market slide is not the result of "one or two or three crooked CEOs. That might strike some as being an apologist. I'm not here to fan the flames."

At 43, Cavuto should be flying high. His once-invisible 4 p.m. program, "Your World With Neil Cavuto," is up 170 percent in the ratings this year with an average of 686,000 viewers, outdistancing Dobbs's "Moneyline" (with 507,000 viewers) and CNBC's "Business Center" (280,000 viewers). He just signed a five-year contract for more than $1 million a year. But he remains edgy and unpredictable, and there are colleagues who view him as something of a flake.

"Some people are convinced, from my style, that he's gotta be on something," Cavuto says.

Cavuto was making light of a serious subject: his own medical condition. He suffers from multiple sclerosis, though there are no overt signs on the air, and sometimes uses steroids and other drugs. Still, he arrives here from his New Jersey home at 6 each morning, manages a business staff of 30 and also does a weekend show.

"I don't want to be judged based on my illness," he insists in his Sixth Avenue office. "People say with your illness, you should cool it. But we shouldn't be looked at differently or be anything less than hard-charging."

Rivals say Cavuto, a former CNBC correspondent, is crowning himself the king of business news when his program features as much general news as financial reporting -- and that his journalistic boat is being floated by Fox's recent success.

"I've got to give viewers a reason to watch," he says. "If I'm doing what CNBC does, they've got a lot more resources and a lot more bench strength."

CNBC, whose ratings surged during the late-1990s bull market, has seen a 23 percent decline this year. "What undid CNBC is that it never changed the model," Cavuto says. "They're married to the market. It's great when the market is going your way, fatal when it isn't."

"Business Center" co-host Ron Insana says CNBC, which broke the story of WorldCom's accounting debacle, is being helped by the recent focus on corporate scandals.

"Everyone's going to say I'm rationalizing the network's position, but 9/11 was the point at which the general news cycle changed, and CNN and Fox were the direct beneficiaries," Insana says. "Both programs that claim to be competitors of ours are now general news shows. We're not in the same business. If you work for a niche service, you don't abandon your niche because times have changed. It's like telling a stockbroker to become a surgeon."

When CNN ran ads touting the 6 p.m. "Moneyline" as the top-rated business show -- the fine print said in the evening -- Cavuto used his own program to protest.

"Let's be real here -- selectively saying what you want to say in an ad is lying. . . . When Fox claims it has the number one business cable show, you're looking at it," he announced.

Dobbs, whose own ratings are up 107 percent this year, brushes off the criticism, saying: "I don't respond to silliness." Asked whether he considers Cavuto a rival, Dobbs says: "If he would like to compete with us, he's welcome to join us in the 6 p.m. hour and compete head-to-head."

In his on-air commentary, Cavuto even unloads on people who have nothing bad to say about him. He waded into a battle between Fox News President Roger Ailes and CNBC commentator Jim Cramer, who left Fox amid bitter litigation. "Just because you used to do a show here doesn't mean we miss you," he scolded Cramer. ". . . I don't need your crap. When you slap Fox News, Jim, you slap me."

Cramer called the slam "uncharacteristic and surprising," saying: "I am sure he regrets it and I don't want to compound his guilt."

Says Cavuto: "It just bothered me. Like if someone makes fun of my kid at school, I'm going to track him down."

As for his swipe at Microsoft, company spokesman Tom Pilla says Microsoft executives have "great respect" for Cavuto and plan to appear on his show again. "It was unfortunate we had pretty tight schedules, and that sometimes prevents our execs from appearing on all the programs," he says.

Cavuto admits he runs the "very big risk" of appearing self-serving with such diatribes. "You won't see me flying off the handle very often. I try to have justifiable flying-off-the-handle sessions. If the world is looking for some calm, passive business anchor, I'm not your guy."

He is equally outspoken about the current spate of corporate meltdowns and accounting scams, often fencing with fellow anchor Bill O'Reilly, whom Cavuto likens to "a lovable loud uncle."

"His view is they're all crooks. Martha Stewart should be decorating a prison cell. It's just wrong. They're innocent till proven guilty. We can jump to conclusions -- that's very easy to do after WorldCom and Xerox and Enron and Global Crossing and Dynegy -- but there are thousands of companies out there. I meet with hundreds of CEOs. Most are decent men and women. They're not all crooks. But to read the press coverage is to assume they all are."

A New York City native whose sales-manager father moved the family to Georgia, Florida, Connecticut and Rhode Island, Cavuto went to St. Bonaventure University and originally set out to be a priest. After earning a graduate degree in public affairs at American University, he worked for the Indianapolis Star and Investment Age magazine.

Cavuto joined CNBC on the first day of its 1989 launch and was successful enough that he occasionally appeared on NBC's "Today" show. He stayed until 1996, when Ailes, his former boss at CNBC, lured him two blocks away to the fledgling Fox News Channel.

"I wanted somebody who could grow," Ailes says. "He wasn't the best known [at CNBC], but he was the best writer, the best on-air presence, the most likable.

"I remember sitting in my office and sweating bullets when he was interviewing Jack Welch," then the chairman of parent company General Electric, "and pinning Jack to the wall." Welch later called to say, "That Cavuto guy's really tough," Ailes says.

The move to Fox was something of a risk. "A lot of people thought I was crazy when I came here," Cavuto says. While CNBC matched Ailes's offer, "one thing they couldn't match was the management side and the fact that I could hire staff and create something from scratch," though he had no management experience.

For the first two years, says Cavuto, "the ratings were horrible. I wrote to 1,000 CEOs and investment types," asking them to come on a show whose network wasn't even carried in Manhattan. Some appeared only as a favor to Cavuto.

While Ailes remained patient, Cavuto faced a bigger crisis in 1997. He had already survived a bout with cancer nearly a decade earlier, and now he was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. "My doctor said, 'You appear to be the unluckiest person on the planet.' "

Cavuto is stoical about his symptoms. "There are days I need a cane, or I can't walk around, or my eyesight is bad," he says. "Most of it is bearable. I've had hospital stays during the rare times that it's debilitating. It comes and goes. I can be good one day and bad the next.

"In a way it's worse than cancer because there's no cure for it. It's with you every day. There is no endgame. Even at my worst, I can still do my job -- for now.

"Even, God forbid, if I'm wheelchair-bound, I can still roll up to my desk. For people here, it's not an issue."

Says Ailes: "He's not a whiner. He's not a crybaby. He's handled it as bravely as I've ever seen anyone handle that kind of situation."

Why isn't his affliction more widely known? Cavuto says he works with multiple sclerosis and cancer organizations but that "I'm not out there with the celebrity-disease-of-the-week thing."

Cavuto would prefer to be noticed for his program, and while he doesn't get much publicity compared with other Fox hotshots, some media critics are taking notice. The Wall Street Journal recently cited Cavuto's "geeky incisiveness" in calling him "the sharpest business interviewer on TV today." And Cavuto has had no trouble getting heavyweight guests, including, in recent weeks, Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill, Senate Minority Leader Trent Lott and House Minority Leader Richard Gephardt.

He seems unruffled by the controversies he creates, such as when he likened Martha Stewart and indicted ex-Tyco chief Dennis Kozlowski to Al Capone. Cavuto's point was not that they were rubbing people out but that they had gotten in trouble for relatively minor tax problems.

"One thing illness teaches you is, life is short," Cavuto says. "I want to stand for something."

[basil]

Neither did Rush--not in many years, anyway. His latest statement on the subject was that he thought drugs should be legalized.

[LRS]

Why, this bond is forfeit;
And blindly by this the Dopers may claim
A pound of pot, to be by them cut off
Nearest Limbaugh's heart...