Something I've noticed about Ben Carson

Politics & Elections
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The odd thing about this is that normally you have the media digging up nasty things the candidate did in his youth and the candidate denying it. Here it’s the opposite - the candidate is claiming to have been a violent guy and the media is debunking it.

So here’s my idea. Carson should assault someone now. This way everyone will admit that there was at least one true assault and we can move on to other things.

Only problem with this is that it might conflict with my other big idea, that Carson apply to West Point now …

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He’s almost there now.

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From this Wall Street Journal piece:

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I’m of two minds of the stories of a violent youth

First possibility is that the incidents did take place, with possible exaggerations and/or poor remembering of details years later.

A second possibility is that, growing up in Detroit, in poverty, surrounded by violence telling stories of how tough/dangerous he was was a way of keeping others from trying to attack him/take advantage/bully him. If the reputation works to help keep him safe from a practical level the truth or falsehood doesn’t matter so much, it’s that it keeps others from starting a fight with him.

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It almost seems like he’s trying to appeal to black voters, but has no idea what black people are actually like without the Republican distortion. “I’ve got to be like a black person… What are black people like? Well, they’re violent, and they like Popeye’s chicken, so I’ll tell a story about a violent incident in a Popeye’s, they’ll love that!”.

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Agreed. Otherwise, I’d be even more worried about the now doctors I taught science to.

67

Holy cats.

So basically, Carson is the guy you end up stuck next to at a social function, who regales you with tales of being the Smartest, Cleverest Witty McWitterson in the room, and all his stories are about what an everyday hero he is and end with something like “… and then I said to him, well you make think so sir, but where I’m from, it’s considered impolite to say such things!” and then looks at you, waiting for fawning adoration about his daring cleverness, all whilst you’re trying to sneak away to the open bar.

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I’ve got to get that book to see if the WSJ left something important out, because the story as reported makes no sense. What is it about openly refusing to take a retest that makes you dishonest?

And I wish that while the WSJ was checking with Yale, they had asked whether there were any 300-level courses that had 150 students in the room. I went to a school with a much larger student body than Yale, and the typical 300-level course there had maybe 25 students. I would expect that Yale has 150 students only in freshman survey classes.

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I’m guessing the assumption is that all the students who refused to re-take the test had cheated on the first one. Which would be a crazy assumption to make. College students are notorious for cramming for a test the night before and then instantly forgetting the material as soon as the test is over. Why wouldn’t they protest having to re-take it?

And it’s funny that this supposed test of honesty was built on a giant lie. I guess irony isn’t Ben Carson’s strongest suit. And I’m guess he never read Ender’s Game either. I don’t think falling for a stupid mind game is an admirable quality in a president.

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Haven’t seen any coraboration from the professor, or any of the other 149 students. Carson’s transcript ought to be easily checkable to narrow down the ‘actual’ class description/number/professor. I mean, how many psych classes could be on his transcript.?

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There is no ‘Perceptions 301’ professor to check with. That class did not exist when Carson was there.

What a weird, weird story.

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The internet is so wonderful. You can read Carson’s full account of the incident here. And it’s a doozy.

First, a little context. Carson says he was so poor that one day during his sophomore year at Yale, he didn’t have enough money for a bus to church. He began walking aimlessly in despair, and then prayed to God for help. And hey presto, he quickly found a 10-dollar bill on the ground. Sweet.

The next year, he was in the same situation, so he tried to tap his heavenly ATM again, taking the same walk, making the same prayer, scanning the ground for ten dollar bills. He didn’t see one this time, but he didn’t have time to worry about it, because he had to go take his Perceptions 301 retest.

And God has given me the answer to my question from my previous post. The reason that the professor considered this a test of honesty was that he KNEW, to the extent that he had a Yale Daily News photographer standing by, that all but one of his students was going to say, “Hey gang, these questions are too hard, so let’s pretend we didn’t see the notice about the retest, and didn’t show up, and we can study these super hard questions before we come back!” And so the other 149 students sneaked out of the classroom, just as the professor predicted. Even though they knew that the prof had seen that all 150 of them were there when he handed out the test (he then left the room, to make it easier for them to sneak out).

So Carson wants us to believe that not only did the prof know he had 149 weasels in his class, but he thought that forcing them to study for and take a second exam two days after the first one was a merry prank to pull during Finals Week at Yale.

And then he gave Carson the ten-dollar bill that God had earmarked for him, which was the real point of the story, that God will give you cash when you need it.*

*If you’re as pious, humble, and honest as Ben Carson.

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So it’s not really even an appeal to black voters, but to those who hold the distorted perception.

“Appeal” isn’t even the word–he’s pandering, just like Trump. It seems to me like what we have is a someone who already was a pathological fibber, who just can’t stop himself, because he loves the attention so much. Mix in some political advisers and we get an odd mixture of pander and fib.

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Well, it could be an appeal to black voters… It’s just that, if that’s what it is, it’s a spectacularly incompetent one.

And even if the students knew the subject matter perfectly, nobody wants to re-take a test. Heck, for that matter, what were the students even doing in the classroom at all after they took the final? Once you take a final, the class is done (that’s why they call it a final, after all), and you don’t go back.

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Oh my god this is incredible. I had posted a link to the Gawker article about this, but then took it out of my post, because it’s just so funny I thought either Gawker was trolling or someone was trolling Gawker. He lied about being the most honest student! And even ignoring that, it just sounds so made up, with all the students not thinking the story about the tests burning and having to take a harder test not sounding fishy. And then with ALL of the students but Carson sneaking out. I did not go to Yale, but I would think there would be a good number of students who were rules followers or super nerds who thought they could still do great on the makeup test. And that there would be one student who would cry out that “this is bullshit, I’m going to go talk to the dean about this!” and would get a group to go. It all just sounds like an Onion story making fun of Carson making up things, but I hadn’t seen the pages from his book.

I can’t wait to hear what his campaign says. They could say something about he changed the class name or year, and he actually took a psychology class called something else. But I don’t know how they’ll explain the absence of the supposed photo of him being the “most honest student.”

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I think you have the right direction here. He’s trying to appeal to people, maybe some particular group, or people in general. I think he wants to sound like his own perception of a typical person. I don’t think he’s making up these stories, he doesn’t strike me as the creative type, I think he’s working from stories he’s heard from others and he’s not capable of determining whether they seem credible or not.

In general I don’t see embellishment or exaggeration to be that big of a deal in public figures. The situation here is different than the typical politician telling a ‘war story’. In this case it’s his lack of understanding about the effects of these stories and how to deal with them. A president with such a loose grasp of human nature could not be effective.

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Oh, first off they’ll say he changed the name of the class in his book just like he changed the name of the friend he nearly stabbed, and that YOU probably don’t remember the name of every class you took in uni, and that maybe the paper didn’t run the story, and that this is a witch hunt by the liberal media, aaaaand eventually “You guys never asked Obama all these questions, you’re not asking the other guys these questions”.

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Yeah, I’m sure that’s what they’ll say. And I know that psychology classes sometimes do “experiments” with the students. I remember in high school there was a psych class and every year the students would go in and the teacher would say that whatever they were wearing that day, they would have to wear the same outfit the rest of the week, something to show about how people don’t notice or care about how you look as much as you do. But even without reporters finding out that there wasn’t a “Perceptions 301” class that year and no picture published, the story just doesn’t make sense.

I didn’t think his West Point story could bring him down, but this one has a much bigger chance if it gets traction. And just as more stories come out it’ll add up to destroy his “honest” reputation he has among conservatives.

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This story has remnants of the old college urban legends. There’s the one about the philosophy teacher’s final exam with one question: “Why?” One student wrote, “Why not?” and got an A on the test.

Then there’s the other one where a student took a test in a large class (over 150) and didn’t stop writing when time was up. He continued for a few more minutes and turned in his sheet to the large pile of exams. The proctor says, “You didn’t stop when I told you. You will fail this test.” Student says, “Do you know my name?” No," said the proctor. So the student sticks in paper in the middle of the pile and shuffles them to avoid being failed.

Ben’s story (his version above) is a combination of stuff like this mixed in with his God to promote religion and how great he thinks it is.

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It’s going to be pretty difficult to explain it as an honest mistake, like they’re trying to do with the West Point story. I can see a high school kid mistaking an offer of help from a general for a promise of admission, although it’s hard to understand how an adult writing about it could have made the same mistake. But then again, he’s the pyramid guy, so he obviously doesn’t put a high priority on correcting his youthful misperceptions, despite being the star of Perceptions 301.

But it’s pretty hard to see how he could be mistaken about the details of the Yale story. You can’t be mistaken about getting a notice to retake a Final Exam. You can’t be mistaken about 150 students walking out and leaving you alone in the classroom. You can’t be mistaken about the professor having your picture taken and handing you money.

I said yesterday that more stuff like this would come out, but I didn’t realize what a treasure trove his biography would be.