# Ben Carson for President thread **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [August 31, 2015, 10:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ben-carson-for-president-thread/729554 "2015-08-31T22:58:32Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 24
**Author:** ![Peremensoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ce7236/32.png) [@Peremensoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peremensoe)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2015, 2:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ben-carson-for-president-thread/729554/461 "2015-11-08T14:12:18Z")
Ignorance may be an excuse for a young, inexperienced, insignificant person. For a grown man of accomplishment and public interest, a freaking Presidential candidate (!), such a rank degree of it is itself inexcusable. But I am convinced he was just lying, anyway. ---
**Author:** ![BobLibDem](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/boblibdem/32/3149_2.png) [@BobLibDem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BobLibDem)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2015, 2:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ben-carson-for-president-thread/729554/462 "2015-11-08T14:17:52Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > He has his biography. He did in fact grow up poor and did in fact become the country’s most renowned neurosurgeon. Despite being a blithering idiot, and a liar to boot. Carson’s knowledge is a millimeter wide and a mile deep. He lied about being a psychopathic thug, he lied about getting a scholarship from West Point, he lied about protecting white students after the MLK assassination, he lied about having a gun in his face at a Popeye’s (to which he heroically told the guy to aim his gun at the guy behind the counter). He thinks the pyramids were granaries, he thinks armed Jews could have stopped the Holocaust, he thinks the ACA is equivalent to slavery… besides being an imbecile and a pathological liar, he’d make a great president. ---
**Author:** ![not\_what\_you\_d\_expect](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/not_what_you_d_expect/32/3246_2.png) [@not\_what\_you\_d\_expect](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/not_what_you_d_expect)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2015, 2:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ben-carson-for-president-thread/729554/463 "2015-11-08T14:20:34Z")
Maybe he isn’t a liar, but he’s an extreme embellisher. ---
**Author:** ![boytyperanma](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/4491bb/32.png) [@boytyperanma](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/boytyperanma)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2015, 2:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ben-carson-for-president-thread/729554/464 "2015-11-08T14:45:52Z")
> [@not\_what\_you\_d\_expect](#): > > Maybe he isn’t a liar, but he’s an extreme embellisher. He’s not a liar! He just keeps saying things that are untrue! [QUOTE=Ben Carson] In the class of 1968 at Patrice Lumumba University in Moscow, Mahmoud Abbas was one of the members of that class, and so was Ali Khamenei. And that’s where they first established relationships with the young Vladimir Putin. [/QUOTE] He tells lie after lie and gets upset at the press for increased scrutiny. ---
**Author:** ![JRDelirious](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jrdelirious/32/9531_2.png) [@JRDelirious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JRDelirious)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2015, 3:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ben-carson-for-president-thread/729554/465 "2015-11-08T15:52:18Z")
OK he managed to endorse statehood and say we’re an asset to the USA, without embarassing himself or his hosts in the speech. Though he did say the US needs to have a stronger presence in the region because the Chinese are investing in many neighboring countries. No idea as of now if he said something silly in the one-on-one with the press. ---
**Author:** ![dropzone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dropzone/32/7515_2.png) [@dropzone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dropzone)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2015, 5:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ben-carson-for-president-thread/729554/466 "2015-11-08T17:30:47Z")
> [@running\_coach](#): > > Why would a SDA go into the military? Damn good question! > [@JRDelirious](#): > > Though he did say the US needs to have a stronger presence in the region because the Chinese are investing in many neighboring countries. I’m interested in learning more about this investment because I assume they are beating us in the all-important Cuban hotel business and probably Jamaican bauxite. Happy to have us invest in PR! Did some work for a guy who owns much of Antigua and I don’t think he’s selling, though. ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2015, 6:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ben-carson-for-president-thread/729554/467 "2015-11-08T18:08:43Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > It’s not a lie, because as a young man that’s what he thought he heard from Westmoreland. IT’s a claim made of ignorance, especially since Carson didn’t know that West Point doesn’t have scholarships since they don’t charge tuition. Despite the fact that I do not believe that Carson [even met](http://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/politics/2015/11/06/carsons-westmoreland-story-match-records/75328960/) Westmoreland (was not in Detroit on those dates it seems), I am willing to play with the story that he did and that as a young man he was both brilliant and ignorant enough to interpret a “Hey. Good grades I hear. You seem … well spoken. You should apply to West Point! I am sure we could do something for you.” as not only an acceptance but an offer of a scholarship. Sure we can go with that. But an adult who has lived in the modern world looking back on that and not realizing that no one gets accepted to such a (even then extremely competitive) program (lots of very smart people who even then wanted to serve their country as leadership and that all paid for bit was attractive) transcript unseen and writing about it as an adult in a book _still_ being that ignorant? That is a level of adult ignorance that is not believable without delusionality. Really. You don’t want to go with delusional and sell that as how “outsider” he is? Then you are left with this ad to the GOP base: “Carson. He may lie more than Clinton but he’s more ignorant and inexperienced!” Yes the GOP base is very primed to accept the “unfair biased left wing lame stream media” meme … and Fox will likely give him a pass on it in the upcoming debate. But his rise is predicated upon his anti-Trump version of outsider. More trustworthy and less full of himself, less self-aggrandizing. This week minimally put a leak into that hot air balloon. A shame. I would have like to have seen him last a bit longer. ---
**Author:** ![Kolak\_of\_Twilo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kolak_of_twilo/32/73_2.png) [@Kolak\_of\_Twilo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kolak_of_Twilo)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2015, 8:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ben-carson-for-president-thread/729554/468 "2015-11-08T20:24:56Z")
Everyone is focused on the Westmoreland/West Point story but it seems to me the easiest story for all of the Carson apologists to confirm as true would be this one, [as related in the WSJ story:](http://www.wsj.com/articles/ben-carsons-past-faces-deeper-questions-1446861864) > [@](#): > > In his 1990 autobiography, “Gifted Hands,” Mr. Carson writes of a Yale psychology professor who told Mr. Carson, then a junior, and the other students in the class—identified by Mr. Carson as Perceptions 301—that their final exam papers had “inadvertently burned,” requiring all 150 students to retake it. The new exam, Mr. Carson recalled in the book, was much tougher. All the students but Mr. Carson walked out. > > “The professor came toward me. With her was a photographer for the Yale Daily News who paused and snapped my picture,” Mr. Carson wrote. “ ‘A hoax,’ the teacher said. ‘We wanted to see who was the most honest student in the class.’ ” Mr. Carson wrote that the professor handed him a $10 bill. > > 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. If there were 150 other students in the class, surely someone, somewhere should be able to find one of them. Wouldn’t there be some record at Yale of Carson’s classes? They have transcripts don’t they? If it isn’t BS, who was the instructor? None of those things should be difficult to find out. ---
**Author:** ![Measure\_for\_Measure](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/measure_for_measure/32/557_2.png) [@Measure\_for\_Measure](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Measure_for_Measure)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2015, 8:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ben-carson-for-president-thread/729554/469 "2015-11-08T20:37:42Z")
> [@Kolak\_of\_Twilo](#): > > If there were 150 other students in the class, surely someone, somewhere should be able to find one of them. Wouldn’t there be some record at Yale of Carson’s classes? They have transcripts don’t they? If it isn’t BS, who was the instructor? None of those things should be difficult to find out. It was a piece of salvation glurge cooked up for evangelical audiences. To anyone with the barest amount of common sense, the story was ludicrous on its face. I grew up in a household belonging to a mainline church and this stuff is absolutely alien to me. Reporters are digging. Apparently Carson based the story on a [parody article](http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2015/11/ben-carsons-psychology-test-story-gets-even-weirder) published at Yale. Weirdly, it’s the Carson campaign that released the evidence. ---
**Author:** ![Robot\_Arm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/robot_arm/32/18280_2.png) [@Robot\_Arm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Robot_Arm)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2015, 8:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ben-carson-for-president-thread/729554/470 "2015-11-08T20:47:55Z")
> [@Kolak\_of\_Twilo](#): > > If there were 150 other students in the class, surely someone, somewhere should be able to find one of them. Wouldn’t there be some record at Yale of Carson’s classes? They have transcripts don’t they? If it isn’t BS, who was the instructor? None of those things should be difficult to find out. Well, the other 150 students have already shown themselves to be dishonest, so we shouldn’t believe them when they say it didn’t happen. And the professor told a lie about the test papers being burned, so his credibility is shot, too. The only part of the story that seems hard to believe is that such an ivory-tower liberal as the professor would be looking to reward honesty. I think Carson is mis-remembering; the students who walked out were all given A’s for their blatant disregard for authority while Carson had to repeat the class until he got it right. That’s why there’s no record of the picture. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Hamster\_King](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/8edcca/32.png) [@The\_Hamster\_King](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Hamster_King)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2015, 8:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ben-carson-for-president-thread/729554/471 "2015-11-08T20:58:02Z")
> [@Measure\_for\_Measure](#): > > Reporters are digging. Apparently Carson based the story on a [parody article](http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2015/11/ben-carsons-psychology-test-story-gets-even-weirder) published at Yale. Weirdly, it’s the Carson campaign that released the evidence. Reading the piece about the hoax is interesting. Apparently The Yale RECORD (the campus humor magazine) printed a fake edition of The Yale DAILY (the campus newspaper). Included in the fake news articles was an announcement that some psych exams had been destroyed and a retest would be offered at 7:30 in the evening. The humor magazine staff went so far as to actually stage a fake exam for any suckers who actually showed up. So Ben Carson may indeed have taken a fake psych exam while he was at Yale. However, I fail to see why falling for a college prank is evidence of his upstanding character. More like his gullibility. ---
**Author:** ![Ukulele\_Ike](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/df788c/32.png) [@Ukulele\_Ike](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ukulele_Ike)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2015, 9:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ben-carson-for-president-thread/729554/472 "2015-11-08T21:11:45Z")
> [@Kolak\_of\_Twilo](#): > > If there were 150 other students in the class, surely someone, somewhere should be able to find one of them. Wouldn’t there be some record at Yale of Carson’s classes? They have transcripts don’t they? If it isn’t BS, who was the instructor? None of those things should be difficult to find out. The Yale Library, which is pretty good at keeping records, has already stated that the class never existed. ---
**Author:** ![Rick\_Kitchen](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rick_kitchen/32/522_2.png) [@Rick\_Kitchen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rick_Kitchen)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2015, 10:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ben-carson-for-president-thread/729554/473 "2015-11-08T22:25:51Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > Yes, the ones who recently reported that he was quiet and stayed out of trouble and concentrated on his studies. I remember just eight years ago how important temperament was for the Presidency, more important than experience. Ah, how times and standards change depending on who is running. I was talking about the _Wall Street Journal_ which is reporting that they can’t find anybody who can prove that he actually protected white class mates from rioters. ---
**Author:** ![Rick\_Kitchen](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rick_kitchen/32/522_2.png) [@Rick\_Kitchen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rick_Kitchen)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2015, 10:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ben-carson-for-president-thread/729554/474 "2015-11-08T22:28:18Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > It’s not a lie, because as a young man that’s what he thought he heard from Westmoreland. IT’s a claim made of ignorance, especially since Carson didn’t know that West Point doesn’t have scholarships since they don’t charge tuition. The claim that he spoke to Westmoreland on Memorial Day has been proven to be false. ---
**Author:** ![Fiveyearlurker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/da6949/32.png) [@Fiveyearlurker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fiveyearlurker)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2015, 10:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ben-carson-for-president-thread/729554/475 "2015-11-08T22:29:27Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > It’s not a lie, because as a young man that’s what he thought he heard from Westmoreland. IT’s a claim made of ignorance, especially since Carson didn’t know that West Point doesn’t have scholarships since they don’t charge tuition. I can maybe see this as an embellishment of the truth had he actually been accepted at West Point, in which case, fine, the lack of tuition could be stretched into a “full scholarship”. But, as it is, he didn’t apply, no less get accepted. So, he was not in any way offered a full anything. I didn’t apply either, did I get offered a full scholarship? ---
**Author:** ![Fiveyearlurker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/da6949/32.png) [@Fiveyearlurker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fiveyearlurker)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2015, 10:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ben-carson-for-president-thread/729554/476 "2015-11-08T22:34:34Z")
> [@Measure\_for\_Measure](#): > > Reporters are digging. Apparently Carson based the story on a [parody article](http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2015/11/ben-carsons-psychology-test-story-gets-even-weirder) published at Yale. Weirdly, it’s the Carson campaign that released the evidence. Is this parody article even dated? Does the date in any way match his story? ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2015, 11:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ben-carson-for-president-thread/729554/477 "2015-11-08T23:01:51Z")
> [@Rick\_Kitchen](#): > > The claim that he spoke to Westmoreland on Memorial Day has been proven to be false. I’d be willing to give him the benefit of the doubt that he spoke with Westmoreland on a similar occasion (a few months earlier, IIRC, too lazy to do a few clicks to look it up :)) that Westmoreland was in Detroit. But (responding more to **adaher** now) as DSeid said just a few posts earlier, it’s one thing for a 17 year old to misinterpret that conversation as an offer of a ‘full scholarship’ to the U.S. Military Academy. It’s another thing for a 40 year old man, reflecting on his past as he writes his autobiography, to be similarly deluded. Or a 63 year old man describing the incident again three months ago. He could be lying. Or he could have an incredibly weak connection with reality as we know it. Lying, frankly, is much less of a disqualification than being a total fruit loop. ---
**Author:** ![Onomatopoeia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/onomatopoeia/32/4145_2.png) [@Onomatopoeia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Onomatopoeia)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2015, 11:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ben-carson-for-president-thread/729554/478 "2015-11-08T23:05:50Z")
> [@RTFirefly](#): > > He could be lying. Or he could have an incredibly weak connection with reality as we know it. Lying, frankly, is much less of a disqualification than being a total fruit loop. QFT ---
**Author:** ![Truman\_Burbank](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ecc23a/32.png) [@Truman\_Burbank](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Truman_Burbank)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2015, 11:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ben-carson-for-president-thread/729554/479 "2015-11-08T23:18:26Z")
So, here’s your defense: I got pranked by a satire article in the school newspaper, and even decades later instead of ever realizing I’d been punked, I continued to believe that it was real, and I told the story over and over again as an example of my integrity. And, oh yeah, I’m entirely ready to take on rival global powers in matters of national security. I’m the best the Republican party has for that. ---
**Author:** ![Randolph](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e5b9ba/32.png) [@Randolph](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Randolph)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2015, 11:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ben-carson-for-president-thread/729554/480 "2015-11-08T23:24:29Z")
Watching this whole “_explaining intellectual integrity to **adaher** _” thing is like reading Alice in Wonderland. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ben-carson-for-president-thread/729554.md?page=23) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ben-carson-for-president-thread/729554.md?page=25)