Dr. Ben Carson’s presidential ambitions just went POOF, due in large part to his shaky relationship with the truth. Carson had an epic flameout yesterday, starting with a testy interview with CNN’s New Day co-host Aliysn Camerota, then with a Politico article that threw cold water on his claims that he was offered a “scholarship” to attend West Point, to the questions he was asked during a press conference Friday evening. FLAMEOUT!
We wouldn’t know the things that have come out about him if he hadn’t said them. We are picking a president of the United States, we can’t just shrug our shoulders and say eh and give him a pass because he doesn’t want to be questioned on his history. The scrutiny isn’t a “witch hunt” as he says. It’s warranted. He seems to have fabricated core points of his life from rags to riches. Crying media bias will not help Carson or any other candidate to get into the White House.
Dr. Carson wants to be president, but on his terms — not answering any questions about his past. Since he has no political or business experience, his biography, Gifted Hands, is mostly all we have as a starting point to vet him. When Camerota confronted with questions about his “violent” childhood and his imaginary friend Bob, he started flailing and accusing the media of not going after then-presidential candidate Barack Obama. Um, can you say, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Bill Ayers, Tony Rezko, longform birth certificate, birtherism, and the list goes on…..
Carson’s rise in the polls should take a massive hit with the constant drip, drip of untruths and half-truths that have emanated from his lips. It’s troubling that for a man who is running on his Christian faith and honesty, the opposite is true. He wants to con his way into the White House with no business or political experience and more questions than answers about his character.
If the West Point dust-up was just one incident of dishonesty, then one could give Carson a pass. But this is one of many untruths or half-truths that have emanated from his lips. Here’s a list from Mother Jones:
Mannatech: Then: “Three years ago I had an endowed chair bestowed upon me….I’m proud to say that part of that $2.5 million came from Mannatech.”
Now: He now denies that any of the money for the endowed chair actually came from Mannatech. “He simply got things mixed up,” a campaign spokesman said.
Plagiarism: Then: “Several sections of potential Republican presidential candidate Dr. Ben Carson’s 2012 bookAmerica the Beautiful were plagiarized from various sources, BuzzFeed News has found….In one instance, Carson cites wholesale from an old website that has been online since at least 2002, Socialismsucks.net.”
Now: “I attempted to appropriately cite and acknowledge all sources inAmerica the Beautiful, but inadvertently missed some.” This is such a common excuse among plagiarists that it’s practically become a joke.
Perceptions 301 Psychology test: Then: “The day before I’d been informed that the final examination papers in a psychology class, Perceptions 301, ‘were inadvertently burned’….So I, with about 150 other students, went to the designated auditorium for the repeat exam….[The questions] were incredibly difficult….Soon half the class was gone, and the exodus continued. Not one person turned in the examination before leaving.
“….Suddenly the door of the classroom opened….The professor came toward me. With her was a photographer for the Yale Daily News who paused and snapped my picture. ‘What’s going on?’ I asked. ‘A hoax,’ the teacher said. ‘We wanted to see who was the most honest student in the class.’ She smiled again. ‘And that’s you.’ “
Now: The Wall Street Journal reports that “no photo identifying Mr. Carson as a student ever ran, according to the Yale Daily News archives, and no stories from that era mention a class called Perceptions 301. Yale Librarian Claryn Spies said Friday there was no psychology course by that name or class number during any of Mr. Carson’s years at Yale.”
Carson’s campaign also put out a rap ad to appeal to black voters. Well, when asked about the ad, he disagreed with his campaign saying he would not have gone about it that way. It seems to me that they are trying to package Ben Carson in a way that is contrary to who he is or what he truly represents. The fact is, he’s a terrible candidate, who gained fame in the political sphere as a result of his association with Fox News.
Carson is about to flameout like Mr. 999, Herman Cain. The RNC had better get to the bottom of this mess before it becomes a real embarrassment for the party. There is no way on earth this guy could face off with Hillary Clinton in the presidential election. They would have a field day and she would win by a landslide. He will not appeal to the electorate at large — independents, black voters, Hispanic voters, LGBT voters, women and young voters. The evangelicals won’t put him in the White House. So, I guess, his time on the political stage will be short-lived. We don’t need Donald Trump to take him down. Ben Carson will take himself down..one untruth or half-truth at a time.
This article on Ben Carson was cross-posted from The Hinterland Gazette.
Photo by Gage Skidmore [CC BY-SA 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons