The Ben Carson Show (America)

While not everything wrong with Ben Carson’s presidential campaign can be pinned directly on the good doctor, his own inability to communicate with others while respecting reasonable bounds of reality has left many questioning whether or not the man who believes so many absurd notions about history, science, and humanity is smart enough to be president of anything. And in that context, no, the latest failure of his campaign staff just doesn’t help.

Happy Geography Awareness Week! Recognizing that “too many young Americans are unable to make effective decisions, understand geo-spatial issues, or even recognize their impacts as global citizens,” National Geographic created this annual observance to “raise awareness to this dangerous deficiency in American education.”

Ben Carson’s presidential campaign inadvertently underscored this point Tuesday night, when it took to social media to share a map of the United States in which five New England states were placed in the wrong location. The campaign deleted the Twitter and Facebook posts Wednesday morning after media outlets and social media users pointed out the error.

(Ingraham)

Dr. Carson doesn’t help his assertion of Christian virtue with bigotry and cruelty toward war refugees; he certainly doesn’t help his assertion of presidential competence by losing track of New England.

____________________

Image note: Composite sources ― Ben Carson Campaign/Twitter via Washington Post; Joe Raedle/Getty Images.

Ingraham, Christopher. “Ben Carson’s campaign made a U.S. map and put a bunch of states in the wrong place”. The Washington Post. 18 November 2015.

The Ben Carson Show (Phenomenon)

Tom McCarthy tries to explain the Ben Carson phenomenon for The Guardian:

He is more than an American success story, brilliant brain surgeon and bestselling author of 10 Christian-themed books. He has also coined some of the most outlandish statements ever uttered on the national stage, a purveyor of bizarre conspiracy theories and a provocateur who compares abortion to slavery and same-sex marriage to pedophilia.

This week, Carson restated his belief that the pyramids were built by the biblical Joseph to store grain, and not by Egyptians to entomb their kings. He believes that Vladimir Putin, Ali Khamenei and Mahmoud Abbas attended school together in Moscow in 1968. He believes that Jews with firearms might have been able to stop the Holocaust, that he personally could stop a mass shooting, that the Earth was created in six days and that Osama bin Laden enjoyed Saudi protection after 9/11.

The Carson conundrum is not fully captured by a list of his eccentric beliefs, however. He also confounds the traditional demographics of US politics, in which national African American political figures are meant to be Democrats. Not only is Carson a Republican – he is a strong conservative on both social and economic issues, opposing abortion including in cases of rape and incest, and framing welfare programs as a scheme to breed dependence and win votes.

He has visited the riot zones of Ferguson and Baltimore but offered little compassion for black urban poor populations who feel oppressed by mostly white police forces.

Even Carson’s core appeal as a Christian evangelical is complicated by the fact that he is a lifelong adherent to a relatively small sect, the Seventh-Day Adventist church, whose celebration of the sabbath on Saturday instead of Sunday and denial of the doctrine of hell have drawn accusations of heresy from other mainstream Christian groups.

That last probably plays more strongly with the British audience; in the United States, Christian is as Christian does; Dr. Carson’s penchant for false witness and exclusionary, judgmental scorn are his own ad hoc iteration of faith, shot through with neurotic self-contradiction as it struggles to justify his self-centered pretense of humility. If one seeks strangeness about the SDA experience in general, it is a different phenomenon.

The Ben Carson Show (Pervert’s Pride Memo)

MEMORANDUM

To: Dr. Ben Carson

re: Pervert’s pride

On Thursday, 5 November, Dr. Carson, you advocated segregation in American society.

GOP presidential candidate Ben Carson suggested creating separate public bathrooms for transgender people in an interview with Fusion’s Jorge Ramos Thursday.

When Ramos asked Carson if transgender men and women should be able to use any public bathroom they choose, Carson responded, “How about we have a transgender bathroom?”

“It is not fair for them to make everybody else uncomfortable,” Carson added. “It’s one of the things that I don’t particularly like about the movement.”

(Mellen)

Actually, Dr. Carson, would you like to know what really makes everybody else uncomfortable, whether in restrooms or anywhere else? Bigots. Hateful people such as yourself.

Still, though, Ruby Mellen, in her Huffington Post report, includes mention of the supremacist campaign against the transgender in Texas―

One particularly sinister TV ad showed a man following a young girl into a public restroom while a woman’s voice said, “Any man at any time could enter a woman’s bathroom simply by claiming to be a woman that day.” (It’s already illegal to sexually harass women, with or without HERO.)

―that provides us a constructive avenue, since it’s already quite apparent that truth, reality, honesty, and dignity have no place in your allegedly Christian heart.

This is very simple, Dr. Carson: Prove your point.

Put on a dress and show us how easy it is.

Put on a dress, use a women’s restroom, and prove your point. Because here’s the thing: All you or, say, Mr. Huckabee accomplish broadcasting these deviant erotic fantasies is telling us all about the eye of the beholder.

That is to say, Dr. Carson, sure, so now we know what you would do in a women’s restroom. We know what Mr. Huckabee would do in a women’s restroom.

And it really is grotesque that you should assign your own exploitative sexual deviance to other people just in order to complain about them. Still, though, it is possible to demonstrate your point; the only question is whether you’re actually willing to.

And if not, Dr. Carson, then shut your filthy mouth.

____________________

Image notes: Top ― Ben Carson speaks at the South Carolina Tea Party Coalition Convention on Jan. 18, 2015, in Myrtle Beach, S.C. (Richard Ellis/Getty Images) Right ― Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee waits backstage before speaking during the Freedom Summit Saturday, Jan. 24, 2015, in Des Moines, Iowa (AP Photo/Charlie Neibergall)

Levine, Sam. “Mike Huckabee Belittled Transgender People In February Speech”. The Huffington Post. 2 June 2015.

Mellen, Ruby. “Ben Carson: Transgender People ‘Make Everybody Else Uncomfortable’ In Restrooms”. The Huffington Post. 5 November 2015.

A Clown Car Presentation: Insurevirentaderble

Never read too much into any one poll, but the lede from Associated Press is nonetheless troubling:

Republican voters view Donald Trump as their strongest general election candidate, according to an Associated Press-GfK poll that highlights the sharp contrast between the party’s voters and its top professionals regarding the billionaire businessman’s ultimate political strength.

But wait, there’s more:

Seven in 10 Republican and Republican-leaning registered voters say Trump could win in November 2016 if he is nominated, and that’s the most who say so of any candidate. By comparison, 6 in 10 say the same for retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson, who, like Trump, has tapped into the powerful wave of antiestablishment anger defining the early phases of the 2016 contest.

And then there is the reality check: “Trump and Carson are considered among the least electable general election candidates by the Republican Party’s professionals, those who are in the business of helping candidates run campaigns and win elections”, explain Steve Peoples and Emily Swanson, and in truth one need not be a political professional to figure that out. Still, though, how superstitious do we really wish to be?

The Carly Fiorina Show (See Dick)

“There was no major scandal or faux pas to bring Fiorina down. While the impact of her debate performance may have worn off over time, why did she suffer this fate while Trump, Ben Carson and Marco Rubio have continued to gain from their debating styles?”

―Dick Morris and Eileen McGann

Call it a personal weakness: I love me some Dick.

Dick Morris, that is.

It is an eternal question: How does Dick Morris still get work? After all, who the hell still listens to Dick frickin’ Morris? True enough, people like me, but that’s the thing. Check this out:

Fiorina showed an eclectic knowledge of national affairs and fluently recited key facts about our weakened defense posture. She seemed like a nonascorbic, scandal-free alternative to Clinton.

Then, what happened?

There was no major scandal or faux pas to bring Fiorina down. While the impact of her debate performance may have worn off over time, why did she suffer this fate while Trump, Ben Carson and Marco Rubio have continued to gain from their debating styles?

While The New York Times contributed to her fall with a front page article chronicling―and bashing―her record at Hewlett Packard, it was the bloggers who brought Fiorina down. The Times story regaled the saga of how Fiorina had induced HP to buy Compaq despite evidence of its declining clout, and emphasized the 30,000 layoffs under her tenure as CEO.

The bloggers really did a number on Fiorina, explaining her lack of conservative credentials. They quoted her 2010 comment, during her contest with Democratic Senator Barbara Boxer that Roe v. Wade was “settled law” and noted her endorsement of Marco Rubio’s plan for amnesty for immigrants here illegally, her support for Sonia Sotomayor for the Supreme Court and her willingness to weaken Proposition 13, which holds down property taxes in California.

The blogs left Fiorina bleeding.

For Morris and McGann, “the larger story here is the extreme sensitivity of the Republican primary electorate’s evidence of impurity in the presidential candidates”, which itself leads off the sort of petulant paragraph that reminds why we all love us some Dick. The entire article is historical-romantic comedy―hiroco? Gesundheit!―gold. And the thing is that there is plenty of evidence of conservative electoral puritanism, but what of the rest of the Republican Party? It is not just that Morris and McGann omit entirely Ms. Fiorina’s astounding dishonesty about Planned Parenthood, and her stubborn, clumsy retort to the resulting controversy really would not seem encouraging to establishment Republicans who still bear questions of electability in their analyses.

The Mike Huckabee Show (Republican Virtue)

In truth, given the terrible rhetoric earning Ben Carson rewards, why wouldn’t Mike Huckabee, go out of his way to throw down a racist jab that only invites reminders about the time his son sadistically killed a dog.

This is Mike Huckabee, after all.

And this is your 2016 Republican presidential clown car.

Oh, right. That. You’re going to love the follow-up.

____________________

Image note: Composite ― Detail of photo by Charlie Niebergall/AP; tweet by Mike Huckabee, 13 October 2015.

Huckabee, Mike. “I trust Bernie Sanders with my tax dollars like I trust a North Korean chef with a labrador!” Twitter. 13 October 2015.

Lavender, Paige. “Mike Huckabee Got Pretty Racist While Live-Tweeting The Dem Debate”. The Huffington Post. 13 October 2015.

Called “Family Values”, for Some Strange Reason

Something about Republicans and values and bigotry goes here.

Socially conservative Republicans gathered in Washington this week have their eye on Senator Ted Cruz of Texas for the party’s presidential nod and former neurosurgeon Ben Carson for the Republican vice presidential nominee.

(Reuters)

Yeah. That’ll do.

Family Research Council Action, a Christian lobbying group, said on Saturday that more attendees polled at the Values Voter Summit said Cruz, a leader with the Republican’s Tea Party wing, should be the party’s presidential nominee for the November 2016 election.

Cruz, who also won the group’s so-called “straw poll” the previous two years, took 35 percent of the support among the nearly 2,700 summit-goers, followed by Carson with 18 percent, the group said in a statement. Former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee got 14 percent and U.S. Senator Marco Rubio of Florida 13 percent.

Business tycoon Donald Trump, who has led public opinion polls, came in fifth place with 5 percent.

Carson led among attendees for the vice presidential nod with 25 percent support among those polled, followed by former business executive Carly Fiorina with 21 percent and Cruz with 14 percent, the group said.

Sounds about right.

Anyway, yeah. Just thought you should know. After all, when it comes to family values, this is what Republicans are actually talking about.

You know. Bigotry as a family value, that sort of thing. And it probably isn’t fair to recall the conservative pitch about bigotry as a virtue of citizenship, since that was Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, who dropped out. But was the previous family-values frontrunner. And, you know, it’s pretty clear it’s not the bigotry wrecking these candidates; in this crowd, they give awards for it.

____________________

Washington Newsroom. “Republican ‘Values’ voters back Cruz-Carson presidential ticket”. Reuters. 26 September 2015.

The Ben Carson Show (Supremacism)

Meet the Press:

CHUCK TODD: Let me wrap this up by finally dealing with what’s been going on, Donald Trump, and a deal with a questioner that claimed that the president was Muslim. Let me ask you the question this way: Should a President’s faith matter? Should your faith matter to voters?

DR. BEN CARSON: Well, I guess it depends on what that faith is. If it’s inconsistent with the values and principles of America, then of course it should matter. But if it fits within the realm of America and consistent with the constitution, no problem.

CHUCK TODD: So do you believe that Islam is consistent with the constitution?

DR. BEN CARSON: No, I don’t, I do not.

CHUCK TODD: So you―

DR. BEN CARSON: I would not advocate that we put a Muslim in charge of this nation. I absolutely would not agree with that.

Sometimes it seems as if a moment should speak for itself.

No, really.

Ladies and Gentlemen, Dr. Ben Carson.

This is your 2016 Republican Presidential Clown Car.

____________________

Image note: Source photo by Richard Ellis/Getty Images, 2015.

Todd, Chuck. Interview with Ben Carson. Meet the Press. NBC, New York. 20 September 2015. Transcript.