I hope you'll be watching tonight's Fox Business Network debate with us but whether you do or you don't, I especially hope you'll keep in mind what host Neil Cavuto will be going through because of multiple sclerosis.
Two years ago, I offered praise and sympathy Cavuto for his struggles in dealing with MS. Sadly, the disease has progressed. From an interview in The Hollywood Reporter (with my emphases in the responses):
In 2014, you wrote a heartfelt essay about your struggles with cancer and MS in which you revealed that you memorized your own copy in case you couldn't read the teleprompter.
Now I have to wing all my shows because it's that bad. Multiple sclerosis is a mercurial disease. You have no control over your body. You're just walking along and you fall or your eyesight can go in or out. Now I don't have the option of reading [the prompter]. Even at the last debate I had to memorize what I was going to say as we started the debate. But it's minor adjustments. I've been lucky in my career. Financially I've done OK. I'm a long way from my priest-to-pauper move. But it's a humbling experience. And I wanted to remind people who deal with it that they're not alone...
You also wrote that getting cancer and MS were the best things that ever happened to you.
Before I had either of the diseases I really was an ass. I was so career-centric, stepping on people, doing whatever it took to get ahead. And I later realized you don't have to do any of that crap. You could be a good person, or try to be, and still have a good life. So I think it was God's way of saying I'm going to slap you around a couple of times and bring you down a peg or two. I know this sounds crazy but I wouldn't trade it. Yeah, I'd like to have a little better mobility. I'd like my eyesight to be back to what it was. I'd like the twitches and the headaches and all the other stuff to go. But I think it's kept me real. It's kept me grounded.
We won't go soft on Cavuto when it comes to bias, distortion or spin. But on a human level, you've got to feel for this guy and cheer him on, eh?
Cavuto photo by freddthompson (Jeri with Neil Cavuto) [CC BY-SA 2.0], via Wikimedia Commons
He’s definitely got a very weird, very eccentric set of political/ideological views,but I’ve several times seen him absolutely destroy right-wing guests on one issue or another, engaging in such battles often enough when his MS is flaring up so badly, he can barely get an intelligible sentence out.
I don’t agree with him very often, but he’s not some cookie-cutter right-wing hack a la Lou Dobbs or most of the other people on Fox Business.
No, Ellen, no we don’t. When he shows US a little measure that HE is actually human, then maybe—just maybe—I’ll “feel for this guy and cheer him on.” I don’t care one bit that the man’s “suffering” from any illness; he doesn’t allow the slightest empathy to color his worldview, so I’m going to offer him just as much empathy as he shows to others.
We’ve lost far too many people who were TRULY WORTHY of our respect (David Bowie and Natalie Cole, just to name a couple) to waste a single tear on Cavuto.
Sorry if that’s cold, but I really don’t care. Just be thankful I’m not expressing my real feelings towards Cavuto.
