Somebody asked me this past weekend about Ben Carson. I had never heard of him. I apparently don’t watch enough Fox News. So this morning I read today’s CNN article about him: http://www.cnn.com/2014/12/02/politics/ben-carson-gop-poll/ So tell me why he would be horrible for America as president or great for America as president other than he’s a republican…yada yada yada.
I know:
African American
Child of a single mother
Poor childhood in Detroit
Yale undergrad
Michigan medical school
Pediatric neuro-surgeon
Conservative
No political background
Rose to public prominence as a speaker at the National Prayer Breakfast in 2013
Fox News paid contributor
Recently aligned with GOP after being an independent
Pondering a presidential candidacy
Ben Carson strikes me as a man of obvious accomplishment who has spent most of his professional life focused on the complex field of pediatric neuro-surgery. I am not qualified to judge his medical career, but I’ll take it at face value he is a leader in this field.
Then I see him say things like this, in commenting on the riots in the wake of the grand jury decision in the Michael Brown case:
I think he believes this is an original thought, one that hasn’t been beaten into the ground by countless conservative bigots and anti-feminists, and absolutely laughable as a parochial response to the complicated social problems exposed by the incident.
It’s of course lapped up like crack to the Fox News base–and his race gives them a free pass to excuse their own potentially racist opinions on the subject. To me, it reveals a mind that hasn’t really thought much about these issues–on balance that’s fine, he’s devoted his mental energies to the far more laudable goal of saving children. But president? If so, there are a few loudmouths at the local tavern (and the talk radio circuit–much the same thing these days) who are equally qualified.
Obama used up all the novelty of “black president.” America may have voted for 8 years of a black presidency but it unfortunately will not want 12 or 16.
I’d be kind of concerned about the lack of a political background. It sounds like he’d make a better Surgeon General than President. I hear the position’s open…
I’d say it’s more like we’re once again done with electing an ill-equipped candidate based on what he is rather than who he is (ala Jimmy Carter) and now perhaps we can go back to electing candidates who are qualified by experience and performance to hold the office.
But he wasn’t elected because of his accomplishments at either. He was elected because he was supposedly a “good and honest man”, unlike that alleged paragon of evil, Richard Nixon.
Well, he was a good and honest man, and he also had experience as a Governor. He also, by the way, did a fair job as President.
I think we expect too much of our Presidents in the modern era. They don’t “run the country,” and they certainly don’t “run the economy.” They don’t even run the government without Congress. They are simply the “chief executive” of the government. They don’t get to make everything better or prevent bad things from happening. Carter did fine. Obama is doing a nice job too, under very difficult circumstances.
