When reciting personal anecdotes, a) you don’t need cites, and b) even if it’s made up it’s a pretty small crime, since most people tend to remember their own history the way they want to. And you can’t prove that these things didn’t happen as Carson remembered them anyway.
You can prove that Carson was not offered admittance to West Point as there are no records of his application. When you tell tall tales and there is zero evidence to support it, it shows you’re nothing more than a con man, as further evidenced by his selling of snake oil.
I’m sure you were as forgiving for Brian Williams.
Anyway, the West Point story, by itself, would not be a big deal to me. As others have said, there are many better reasons to keep this guy out of a position of power. But, he does seem to play fast and loose with the truth. That would give me pause if I were ever going to give him a second of consideration.
Carson never claimed he applied, and the offer was not in writing. Many West Point attendees are recruited that way. Heck, many recruits to ANYTHING are recruited that way. “Hey, want a job?” is not a formal job offer, but it’s fair for someone who has heard that to say they had an offer of employment.
And Hillary Clinton says her grandparents were immigrants. Oops. I don’t think you’ll find anyone who hasn’t lied about something. I’m more concerned about lies where it’s obvious the person knew they were telling a lie than recounting a story from their youth and getting it wrong because they were ignorant of West Point procedures.
Except that the person he supposedly having dinner with wasn’t in the same town at the time.
So much spinning…
If he wrote his memoir at 17 I’d give him a pass for not knowing any better. When he did write it, though, he should have known. And maybe meeting Westmoreland at a maybe banquet don’t cut it. First, the circumstances of the meeting would be totally different from what he said. Second, as a well known person I bet he gave at least one med student encouragement to apply for an internship or something. He’d know that was nowhere near a job offer. You don’t do serious stuff like that at banquets.
BTW, I read this morning that they found evidence of an unexplored secret room in a pyramid at Giza. I bet Ben is hoping for them finding grain.
Also BTW I don’t remember if I wrote or thought about writing about a well known prof at Berkeley who said I should try to be a professor there. I never did anything about it (they didn’t pay enough) but if I write in my memoir that I turned down a job offer at Berkeley I’d be lying. Just like Carson is lying.
If it’s “innocent misunderstanding”, that’s one thing. I’m not at all convinced that that’s what it was. All of these stories from Carson’s autobiography are now coming across to me as stories that might have a grain of truth to them, but have been spun and elaborated upon to make them sound grander and more indicative of Carson’s specialness.
He really does want his rise to have been more impressive than it seems it really was - a smart, nerdy kid in a tough neighborhood who kept his head down, stayed out of trouble as much as he could, and got the hell out of there and into college, and on to a fine professional career. But that’s already a pretty damn impressive story, and it’s a shame he isn’t satisfied with it. He never had to make up anything.
And the proof that Carson never applied to West Point comes from…his own book! Because in it, he says that Yale is the only school he applied to.
That Carson was a top ROTC member is not disputed. He likely met General Westmoreland in February of 1969, not May. Doesn’t it make sense that Westmoreland, and perhaps others at West Point, would have tried to recruit him? He somehow interpreted that recruitment as a scholarship offer. This is an incredibly silly thing to point at and cry “liar!”
Nobody, except of course, his own mother, who corroborated the story to Parade magazine back in 1997.
I’m not even a Carson supporter, but the attacks on his credibility have been very flimsy.
I think it was a fishing expedition to get CArson pissed, it worked, and Carson looked bad as a result. Dealing with the media is something all outsider candidates suck at(Jesse Venture HATED the media and made no secret of it).
And this is the guy you want to dictate foreign policy. :smack:
I’m going to hang on to this quote for a while:
I’m glad to see his fans are standing by him. It would be sad if his campaign imploded too soon; let’s keep the clown car full as long as possible.
[Anthony Jeselnik]
What can you say about [Ben Carson] that hasn’t already been the title of a Richard Pryor album?
[/Anthony Jeselnik]
As I and others have said several times already, this is a perfectly reasonable mistake to make when you’re 17. Not so much when you’re 40 or 63.
I hate to have to keep saying this, but I’m not hearing any rebuttal, just a restatement of the same old same old, so I’ll keep on pointing out the same old same old problem with it.
Here’s what she said in Parade:
That’s her reaction? I mean, maybe now we know where the guy got his trademark preternatural calm, but she finds out he tried to commit murder [of a relative, no less] and her response is, “Now now, Ben, why must you be so very harsh?”
Sounds like bullshit to me. My money is on her backing up the story because it was already woven into his bestselling memoir and speeches and public persona. If I find it pretty easy to believe that Carson is both a talented neurosurgeon and a self-aggrandizing huckster of the first order, I can very easily imagine his mom being in on the game.
Has she confirmed his story about him trying to hit her in the head with a hammer? That’s the story I’m really curious about. Or about him going after people with a baseball bat, a rock, or a combination lock?
I never thought the stabbing story was impossible, it’s just bizarre. And bizarre things do happen, and that’s why people tell those stories, because they are interesting, but it’s just strange.
Her grandfather Rodham was born in England.
Really? Many West Point attendees are verbally offered a slot in the following year’s freshman class at the U.S. Military Academy by some military bigwig who doesn’t have a position at the Academy, the very first time they meet?