The Real Dr. Ben Carson

Now that retired neurosurgeon Dr. Ben Carson has surged to the upper echelon of Republican presidential primary contenders, many of his positions and statements are beginning to receive a much more serious level of scrutiny. The picture that is emerging is that of a man with extreme and often bizarre views and a marked tendency to exaggerate or invent fantastical stories about himself. These traits, along with Carson's strategy for dealing with these revelations, prefigure, at some point in the not-to-distant future, the likely collapse of his candidacy.

To listen to Dr. Carson for more than a few minutes is to be treated to a set of views that can only be described as bizarre. He has proposed ending Medicare. He wants to phase out Social Security. He has said the Holocaust would not have happened had the Jews been armed. (The Warsaw Jews did arm themselves and rose up against their Nazi tormentors in 1943. Their ghetto was razed in a campaign of savagery that annihilated them all to the last man, woman and child.) He says "Obamacare is the worst thing to happen to America since slavery." He's opined that the ancient pyramids of Egypt were used primarily for grain storage. These strange and loopy views are part and parcel of a fellow who regularly offers opinions completely out of the mainstream politically or completely out of the reality-based factual universe. To be blunt about it, they are the babblings of a crackpot.

 
Painting in Carson's Home: Carson at the right hand of Jesus

Dr. Carson's writings and statements about his own formative past have proven similarly elusive. He's said he hit his mother over the head with a hammer and tried to stab a friend who was only saved by his belt buckle. Friends have told CNN they have no memory or knowledge of these incidents. Carson, a doctor, has described his childhood "rage" as a "pathological disease," of which no record of diagnosis or treatment exists. He's claimed to have been invited to dinner as a young man with Gen. William Westmoreland, U.S. commander in Vietnam. Reporters have determined that Carson and Westmoreland were never in the same place at the same time. He also claimed on the Charlie Rose program he was offered a full scholarship to West Point, a school that is free, where there are no scholarships, because there is no tuition if you are admitted. He had prostate cancer surgery in August, 2002 and in November of that year said he had been cured. Two years later, in 2004, he said his prostate cancer had been cured by dietary supplements provided by Mannatech, a company that was paying him $42,000 a speech to represent them and which has been fined $4 million by the state of Texas for making medically spurious claims. When asked about his involvement with this company during the CNN Republican debate on October 28, 2015, he denied having any relationship with Mannatech. Dr. Ben Carson appears to be a serial prevaricator.

When confronted with evidence of his obvious dishonesty Carson has played the victim. Instead of saying 'Ask my classmates, teachers, relatives, or witnesses,' as you or I would do if we were telling the truth, he has fallen back on the Republican politician's dodge of blaming the "liberal media." He maintains "There's no question I'm getting special consideration. The liberal media is out to tear me down. They're after things that happened fifty years ago, that happened when I was 13." No, they are checking into preposterous-sounding things he claims have happened at various times throughout his life, that he has maintained as an adult and as recently as yesterday. Dr. Carson is running for President of the United States and leader of the free world, a position for which he seems to feel he need not have to undergo any scrutiny about the truthfulness of his statements or the content of his character. He is about to be sorely disabused of that notion.