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We Should Talk About Ben Carson
Having given Bernie Sanders and his supporters a lot of guff — and to to show that I’m more than just a partisan hack — I feel it’s necessary to point out to our side that we have the potential to once again demonstrate the truth behind the Republican Party’s unofficial motto There’s Nothing We Can’t Screw Up™.
The case in point is that of newly-minted Republican frontrunner Dr. Ben Carson. Carson is a fine and admirable man — perhaps unique in all the world for his skill with a scalpel — and, having read his book, the irrepressible nature of his optimism can’t be denied. But he’s nonetheless the flavor of the month for Republican Primary voters. Keep in mind that at this point four years ago, Herman Cain was the frontrunner and Newt Gingrich was about to spike. Anybody could develop some sort of alternate history fan-fiction about how things would have gone had either of these men remained the Republican front-runner, but both were, in the end, deeply flawed candidates for a variety of reasons. Dr. Carson is no different.
Carson’s story is uplifting and uniquely American, but those qualities do not grant you the judgment, cunning, and credibility to either seize or occupy the highest office in the land. Should he become the Republican nominee we would most likely be treated to a passel of strange stories which would surely disqualify Gentle Ben from holding high office. Here’s the latest example:
Ben Carson stood by his long-held belief about ancient pyramids in Egypt, that they were used to store grain, rather than to inter pharaohs. Asked about this Wednesday, Carson told CBS News, “It’s still my belief, yes.”
The subject came up when Buzzfeed published a 1998 commencement speech delivered by Carson at Andrews University, a college founded by Seventh-day Adventists.
“My own personal theory is that Joseph built the pyramids to store grain,” Carson said. “Now all the archeologists think that they were made for the pharaohs’ graves. But, you know, it would have to be something awfully big if you stop and think about it. And I don’t think it’d just disappear over the course of time to store that much grain.”
As an isolated incident, I think this could be forgiven — a simple misunderstanding which wouldn’t be disqualifying in and of itself — but the trouble is that once you start to yank on this thread, the sweater begins to unravel to the point where you’re likely to end up standing naked holding a thousand yards of wool in your hands.
Who knew that jail was one of the leading causes of homosexuality? I guess the rest of America will have the opportunity to learn this lesson as well… in the form of 30-second ads shown over and over and over again.
Given that we have an embarrassment of riches in terms of candidates this cycle — and a strong chance of reclaiming the White House — the only thing preventing us from doing so would be nominating a candidate whose beliefs put him in a place that is incompatible with the body politic. As such, I place Carson’s chances of winning the White House at about the same as I would that the Pyramids were ancient power stations.
Image Credit: “Ben Carson” by Gage Skidmore. Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons.
Published in Politics
Pharaoh sends 50,000 slaves into the desert to build a pyramid. Where does he store the daily bread that sustains them? Did the local planning board authorize temporary pea pod units next to the Porta-potties?
I think so too. And I think that when he spoke of the importance of having a brain and being able to figure things out, he was only trying to allay the fears of those who say he has no political experience. He just meant he has the intellect to figure out what to do and to surround himself with experienced advisors. The problem is getting him in the oval office in the first place, and I don’t see that happening once the general population are voting on it.
I think one of the problems the GOP has is that they are arrogant. They’ll voice platitudes down to the politically unengaged (low information voter LIV for short), but they don’t understand the LIV’s. Trump and Carson appeal to the this group. Carson appeals because he is obviously a unique individual with a great life story – he is distinguished enough that LIV’s can imagine him as president, but he also shares the cultural instincts of the conservative wing of the LIV group. Everytime he says something out of the main stream and get’s attacked for it like the Nazi confiscation of guns, etc. this group only likes him more.
For Trump, he is a branding genius. He knows his brand and he knows the LIV market. The only major sit-down interviews he has done is on the weekday morning shows like Today. The mix of shallow regular and pop-culture news that is presented on morning shows is exactly aimed at the LIV demographic.
We Ricochet are the exact opposite of the LIV demographic. We are the most politically engaged. Look at the polling on Ricochet. At one point Scott Walker was polling at 60% here, where is he now?
If Ben Carson is the nominee, I will gladly vote for him.
Uh oh. Politico.
This just in: Ben Carson also fabricated in his book “Gifted Hands” that he applied for and received a full-ride scholarship to West Point.
I wish I could say that I was prescient, but this was a ticking time bomb that only took somebody looking into it. He lied and it was a whopper.
Haha, you beat me posting this by exactly one second.
Anyway, can we all agree to move on from this guy now? Please?
Ben Carson applied to be part of Pharaoh’s army and got a full ride scholarship… oh, wait. :/
Louis Farrakhan used to tell stories about black Egyptians flying pleasure craft around the Biblical skies…on the Right, we laughed our C of C compliant behinds off at the gullible patheticness of the Left.
Damn shame about Carson. Say, isn’t it past time for one of his defenders here to bring up Chappaquiddick? For the record, Ben Carson never drowned anyone in an Oldsmobile. There, I said it for you.
There is a great deal of hair splitting going on in that Politico piece about West Point. The headline doesn’t match the report.
Haters gonna hate. As usual.
Ben Carson is done, and Donald Trump will be the beneficiary of that.
Majestyk:
I disagree. His gaffs were awful. Remember “I don’t care about the bottom 47%” and “I like to fire people”? In combination with is wealth, those were killers.
This is true for 08. I completely disagree in 12.
So were you really after a discussion, or was your post just an editorial to bait other members? I can get an editorial anywhere and it usually comes without demeaning other posters. Sometimes I wish the CoC was enforced more on this front.
I’ve kind of cooled to the hit piece on candidates with subjects completely unrelated to the office. Who cares? Nobody cares and suggesting they do, particularly this far out, is silly. All I can and should care about is whether the candidate will slow/regress the growth of government and get out of the way of free enterprise. If Mr. Carson will do so and gets the nomination, I’m sold.
How much worse can it get anyway since we have President Obama? <cough> Keystone pipeline <cough> as only the most recent example.
I teach biology and evolution, so it bugs me that Dr. Carson calls evolution a satanic plot. That said, I’d be more bothered if he believed, for example, that you can raise the minimum wage to $15/hour without shutting down businesses and jobs. That’s really crazy.
If it really matters much what a president thinks about evolution, it means the government is way too involved in science education.
To me it raises red flags about judgement, and critical thinking, both key ingredients for a good President.
Ho hum – another example of one of our “pragmatists” assisting the left in sabotaging candidates like Carson, doing progressives’ dirty work under the guise of “gee, I’m worried this makes this guy unelectable.”
Can’t wait for the lectures on how Tea Party and other conservative types are duty bound to support the “moderate” nominee because Winning Is The Most Important Thing In The Most Important Election In US History.
To be fair, Robert keeps raising this as his solution to what he see’s as an insurmountable problem. Its fair to address this with him. He opened the door to this line of questioning so to speak.
The article states that the Carson campaign admits that Carson’s story of being offered and accepting a scholarship to West Point was fabricated. Now, unless the Carson campaign issues a statement that they did not admit the claim was fabricated to Politico, this is a real problem. Frankly, I don’t see the “hairsplitting” that you do. Yes, he was at a banquet with General Westmoreland, as were dozens of other people. Whether the two had a conversation about Carson’s future isn’t the point. There’s no corroborating evidence to suggest they did…or didn’t. But when the campaign admits that the offer and acceptance to West Point was a fabrication…well, that’s pretty damning.
Carson is a nice guy…but I’ve never been convinced he was presidential caliber. Cabinet secretary perhaps…HHS. But not president. The Democrats will eat him alive…and they’re nibbling on him now.
This is apparently a thing. That is real…
Show me the campaign admitting to a fabrication. I keep reading that and no one is linking it.
According to the polling this puts you out of place with the majority of the people. 42% believe God created man as he is 10,000 years ago. 31% believe that humans evolved over a long period with God guiding the evolution. Just 19% believe in evolution with out God.
http://www.gallup.com/poll/21814/evolution-creationism-intelligent-design.aspx
There is a lot of room for someone to speak out against evolution and not be deemed crazy by most of the electorate.
So what? A lot of people believe a lot of crazy stuff, that doesn’t make it true. If a majority of people believed that Communism works should we go ahead and elect Bernie Sanders?
Thank you for picking up more of the letter. The whole letter was great.
I felt like I knew him better after I read it. :)
Should we elect Sanders? No. Would he be electable? Yes. My point is that Carson’s views on evolution do not make him unelectable in the eyes of the majority of the electorate.
From the Politico article in question (emphasis mine):
So, is it your suggestion that Politico has decided to print something they know to be false and open themselves up to a potential libel suit?
Carson lied. You cannot get offered a scholarship to a service academy without formally seeking either a congressional, vice presidential, or presidential appointment. No general, no matter who he is, can offer a scholarship to West Point. And no one would ever receive an offer of a scholarship without formally asking for an appointment. There is no point in defending Carson on this. He lied, period.
Those words you put in my mouth taste awful.
Now link me to the campaign, not politico, admitting to a fabrication.