Ricochet is the best place on the internet to discuss the issues of the day, either through commenting on posts or writing your own for our active and dynamic community in a fully moderated environment. In addition, the Ricochet Audio Network offers over 50 original podcasts with new episodes released every day.
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
And other things have emerged since them as well which are of similar character. My opinion has been reinforced.
Could you comment? I don’t know what this is about. If, as I like to believe, I’m toward the top of the bottom quintile of Ricochetti, there are some 20% or so others who won’t be getting it either.
I think that BThompson was joking, but I agree that this is a topic where dry humor is not always easy to detect and that on topics where feelings can be raw it is good practice to take particular care to avoid giving grounds for offense.
It’s a portrait Carson had commissioned which hangs in his house.
It is also on Drudge at this moment.
It’s… Odd. To say the least.
It isn’t as popular now as it used to be, but there are still reasonable numbers of people who find it helpful to have a visual aid to intensify their appreciation for Christ’s love. This is not all that unusual.
Are you pulling my leg?
I’ve never seen anything like that in my life.
I’d be willing to admit that I’ve led a sheltered life in that regard then, but I can’t believe that sort of thing was commonplace.
I know people who have things like that, albeit with more classical tastes in art. If you want to tell me that that’s a goofy pic of Jesus, then, well, sure. Artistic taste doesn’t rank in my top thirty concerns for politicians, though (except as it relates to campaign merchandise, which would make it a part of campaign competence; if Carson starts selling those, I’ll give a small, snobby, shudder).
Why would a candidate answer such questions? The mind boggles. It is totally irrelevant what Ben Carson thinks about these things. He makes his (bizarre) positions relevant by answering the questions.
Who handles these folks? Deal with journalists with questions like these the way you would a toddler: remain calm and redirect. Under no circumstances should he answer such questions. Sheesh. It’s less the response itself than the lack of intuitive canniness that troubles me about his candidacy.
Cruz disgusted me when he disrupted an unprecedented meeting of Middle Eastern Christian leaders gathered to draw attention to the genocide of Arab Christians. And then he smeared these leaders in the news for booing him off the stage. That display demonstrated either his ignorance or his opportunism; neither is desirable in a president.
Having said that, make no mistake: If he gets the GOP nom, he will get my vote. :)
O. M. G. What fresh hell is this? Carson has to go. This is the most embarrassing thing that’s come out yet, and that’s saying something. I’ve been a Christian all my life, Sunday school, vacation Bible school, the whole nine yards, and I have never seen anything like that portrait in anyone’s house in my entire experience. How can this man get any weirder.
Is it just me…or does the Jesus figure depicted in the painting look like he just emerged from a sauna? The white robe is just missing a Hilton logo.
Have you considered my servant Ben? There is no one on earth like him, he is blameless and upright…
That’s one of the key moments for me (he also said that the group was liberal, despite it being dominated by conservative Republicans). Another was when he agreed to act as Harry Reid’s most aggressive hatchet man in return for twenty hours of screen time and his biggest fundraising boost ever, likening Republicans to confederate and Nazi sympathisers.
Another key moment was his flip flop on trade. Before then, I used to note trade as being the sole exception to his general rule of total craven submission to his donor base. Since then, I have been unable to find an exception. It’s all “if the people of Nebraska are for free silver, then I am for free silver”.
If you knock on doors, which I do a lot, you’ll find that by far the plurality of reasons given for not supporting conservative candidates is that Republicans do not fight, and that Cruz is by far the leading source for that claim.
When we win elections, we win on the basis of a combination of low information voters and enthusiasts. Cruz attacks the LIV base of the party, which means that no matter how conservative you are, you’re going to struggle to get elected in close elections. The people who have never heard of their candidate vote on party affiliation, and Cruz weakens its utility to fund his personal ambitions. He has, so far as I know, never achieved anything positive for the conservative cause; there is no policy in place because of Cruz, nor any policy that is not in place because of him.
I believe that, as he suggests in his book, his fundraising approach is based on polling suggesting that it would make him popular. Before 2011, he appears to have been a perfectly conventional establishment figure, albeit not one who has received the support of anyone he has worked with since college and before he started investigating statewide office.
Cruz is damned when he stands on principle, and damned when he compromises. Such is Establishment Republican logic.
What?
Is this why we never have real life candidates anymore? Is this why, so often, everyone is Mr. Automoton. Because any given idiosyncrasy will be considered just too odd, and we don’t want odd people running things. Like Steve Jobs.
My understanding of the comment was “Cruz is damned when he attacks his own party in a manner that undermines conservatism, and damned when flip flops to leftist positions.” If you think that there’s no option of acting like Mike Lee, Rand Paul, and pals and working to promote conservative ideals, the analysis holds true.
It’s like our unreasonable condemnations of Obama. “Damned if he cancels the Keystone Pipeline, damned if he tries to pass an executive amnesty!” We’re just impossible to please, I guess.
Yep, your more “nuanced” approach really paid dividends in the last two presidential elections. Third time’s a charm, no doubt.
The traditional approach has won 7/11 Presidential races in the last fifty years, fringe purity has lost the only time it got the nomination, and in the worst defeat suffered. I don’t think we have a big enough sample size to draw much from that, but you certainly can’t produce a pro purism argument from that data set without a much more complicated narrative.
In smaller experiments (state and Congressional races), both approaches have led to wins and losses in elections, although generally only after a reasonable degree of party unity is achieved.
It’s not about purity, but loyalty. And the GOP establishment had been consistently disloyal to its base. That’s the reason for the Trump/Carson surge and Jeb Bush’s decline.
Anybody who says anything negative about Our Lord and Savior, the Mighty Cruz is the Establishment. Such is Rage Caucus logic.
Why is it that a certain segment of Conservatives believe that one can’t have genuine disagreements with other Conservatives? It all has to be so me sort of liberal or establishment conspiracy to subjugate the “Real Conservatives”TM.
It’s a straw man stampede!
Wait, you think the reason that “Nazi sympathisers” Cruz is better is because he’s more loyal? That “Maybe I’ll run third party” Trump is more of a party man? That’s something of a surprise to me.
MLR is right. This is a strawman.
My impression is it is not disagreement. It is disaffection, fueled by:
However you feel about the 4 points above, characterizing the problem as one of incapacity to abide disagreement is a big dodge that leaves no hope of the parties getting any closer.
Part of the problem here is that there is such a huge industry devoted to persuading conservatives that this has happened, and it’s so dishonest. For instance, Conservative Review says that McConnell made his promise here. Here are the definitions they are using; if you opposed the shutdown, you’re counted as breaking the promise. Here is the speech being quoted (start at 13 minutes for context). It’s not just not a promise to use shutdowns to oppose amnesty. It’s a promise not to use shutdowns for any purpose whatsoever (that comes a few paragraphs after the quoted statement), and the quote is about his opposition to the EPA in specific and economic regulation in general.
McConnell promised to oppose executive amnesty, and he’s been successful; the courts will tie things up until we have our next President. He’s fought Obamacare, defunding patches, bringing about the current collapse of the cooperatives that were meant to get us part way to single payer, and such. The Mexican border is far, far, better defended than at any other point in history (also internal enforcement is dramatically better, with e-verify having spread greatly and been improved).
Again, part of the reason that it comes across as a big lie is because you’re lied to. Without the Corker Bill, Obama was able to drop sanctions against Iran under the statutory authority in the Iran Sanctions bills. The Corker Bill gave a small chance of defeating it and provided a motive for Obama to work harder on the deal. It delayed the agreement, but didn’t end up being a bigger win; Democrats turned out to be shameless enough to block it. It wasn’t cynical, though, and it wasn’t a lie.
They’re not cynical. With a third of the government, we were able to cut spending, and particularly cut the federal payroll. With the House and Senate, we’ve been able to push harder on Obamacare and such. We’ve been able to ensure spending on the fence and on the border patrol. There are all kinds of advances like that, and we’ve been able to defeat Obama’s legislative agenda.
Unfortunately, we’ve had some jerks in our caucus and on the radio who have made every fight against the Democrats a problem, consistently using the fights as an excuse to wreak havoc on conservative electoral opportunities, so it looks like we’re having to avoid fights during the upcoming year, but that countdown started we were making progress.
There is still progress that needs the White House; a full repeal of Obamacare, strong entitlement reform, a reasonable foreign policy, and such.
I’m not sure what “no government shutdown” is intended to be an excuse for. What is being excused? In what way is the excuse cynical? “No government shutdown” seems like a straightforward statement to me, and like a promise that has been kept.
It’s a shame that it’s had to be made; most of our caucus behave well enough that a shutdown might be a legitimate tool. Unfortunately, some are too much like the Scorpion in the tale of the Scorpion and the Frog, and can be relied on by the Dems to savage their party in the most contemptible terms whenever negotiations get tense. As such, we can’t have nice things. With the Presidency, of course, the question doesn’t arise.
James, alas as before, my response is too long for the comments section, so I did it as a new post. Please go to members feed,