The GOP's Scariest Candidate

[libby]

The following is from the Opinion page of yesterday's Washington Post. It is strong stuff from well-respected columnist and Pulitzer Prize winner, Eugene Robinson, who is a black man -- something I would not ordinarily mention up front or at all, except that the person he's writing about is a famous black doctor who, according to Robinson, "truly seems to have lost his mind."

"Opinions
The GOP's scariest candidate

Ben Carson, famed neurosurgeon, running for president

The conservative star has confirmed that he will seek the Republican nomination in 2016.

By Eugene Robinson Opinion writer
October 12 at 7:31 PM

The craziest thing about the Republican presidential contest isn't that Donald Trump is in the lead. It's that Dr. Ben Carson — who truly seems to have lost his mind — is in second place and gaining fast.

Trump may be a blowhard, but Carson has proved himself to be a crackpot of the first order. Of all the GOP contenders, he's the scariest.

"I say this as a longtime admirer of Carson for his stellar medical career. As the head of pediatric neurosurgery at Johns Hopkins Hospital, Carson not only saved lives in the operating room but also inspired countless young people to overcome rough beginnings and reach for the stars.

That sounds like a cliche, but I've seen the effect Carson has on a room full of low-income African American students when he tells the story of how he escaped a childhood of poverty in Detroit to graduate from Yale University, study medicine at the University of Michigan and become one of the most acclaimed surgeons of our time. Carson's message — if I can do it, so can you — has a powerful impact on young people. I wish he were still delivering it.

Instead, alas, he is running for president. And despite spouting more utter nonsense than the law should allow, Carson has the support of 18 percent of GOP voters, according to the RealClearPolitics poll average — five points behind Trump and miles ahead of the rest of the field.

Carson: Americans need guns to defend themselves against government

Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson told CBS's "Face the Nation" that Americans need to be armed in case "we have the wrong people in office." (Reuters)
Carson speaks softly, slowly, thoughtfully. Much of what he says, however, is dangerously wrong.

His most recent burst of blather was over gun control in the wake of the Oregon massacre. As recently as Sunday, on "Face the Nation," Carson was defending his assertion that the Holocaust would have been "greatly diminished" if Jews had been able to keep firearms in their homes. Gun control laws enacted by the Nazi regime, he contends, were a prelude to genocide.

To say that experts disagree is an understatement. As Jonathan Greenblatt, national director of the Anti-Defamation League, wrote in the Huffington Post: "It is mind-bending to suggest that personal firearms in the hands of the small number of Germany's Jews (about 214,000 remaining in Germany in 1938) could have stopped the totalitarian onslaught of Nazi Germany when the armies of Poland, France, Belgium and numerous other countries were overwhelmed by the Third Reich."

Greenblatt added that it is "wholly inappropriate and offensive" to "manipulate the history of the Holocaust and use it to score political points."

It is equally beyond the pale, in my view, for Carson to have written on Facebook that while he saw the horror of gun violence as a youth in Detroit and as a doctor in emergency rooms, "I never saw a body with bullet holes that was more devastating than taking the right to arm ourselves away." Or to have implicitly criticized the victims in Oregon by saying that "I would not just stand there and let him shoot me," stating that people who find themselves in such circumstances should rush the gunman.

Carson's story of a personal encounter with firearms is just weird. "I have had a gun held on me when I was in a Popeyes organization," he told an interviewer, referring to the fried chicken chain. "Guy comes in, put the gun in my ribs. And I just said, 'I believe that you want the guy behind the counter.' "

It is unclear what happened next. And it is unclear to me, frankly, that this really happened, though Carson swears it did. For one thing, Carson is a vegetarian; his campaign says he went to Popeyes for french fries. I wonder if he also goes to KFC to get coleslaw.

Carson defends stance on guns and Holocaust
Play Video2:10
Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson defended comments that the Holocaust would have been "greatly diminished" if the Jewish people had been armed. (Reuters)

Disturbingly, Carson is a fan of dark conspiracies. Witness his claim that Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas, Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and Russian President Vladimir Putin got to know each other in Moscow in 1968. All of them, he claims, were at Patrice Lumumba University at the time.  PolitiFact looked into the matter and found one meager shred of evidence that Abbas might have attended the university, though no indication of when; zero evidence that Khamenei ever studied in Moscow; and the inconvenient fact that Putin was 16 at the time. PolitiFact's verdict: "Pants on Fire!"

Carson has compared the Affordable Care Act to slavery. He has called President Obama a psychopath. He disbelieves established science on evolution and climate change.

I could go on and on, but I struggle to keep up with the good doctor's mouth."

Eugene Robinson writes a twice-a-week column on politics and culture, contributes to the PostPartisan blog, and hosts a weekly online chat with readers. In a three-decade career at The Post, Robinson has been city hall reporter, city editor, foreign correspondent in Buenos Aires and London, foreign editor, and assistant managing editor in charge of the paper's Style section.

Read more from Eugene Robinson's archive, follow him on Twitter or subscribe to his updates on Facebook. You can also join him Tuesdays at 1 p.m. for a live Q&A.
Read more about this topic:

Jennifer Rubin: The most unfit GOP candidate isn't Trump
Paul Waldman: Ben Carson perfectly explains the Republican position on guns
Damon Tweedy: Carson inspired black doctors. Now we don't know what to make of him.

[Henry Hawk]

First of all, I am trying very hard to getting into any political debates on here, for it is worthless....

BUT,

Eugene Robinson is a liberal and this is nothing more than a HIT PIECE on Carson....based upon his OPINION.  Which happens to be wrong...

Carson is very, very correct with his comments about guns.  It is based upon what our Forefathers feared enough to make it a 2nd Amendment in our Constitution.

He is also getting knocked around for making a very interesting comment about Hitler have a much less chance, HAD the people their been armed. 

The citizens of Germany had been disarmed by their very own government in the late 1930s.  By the mid 40s, Hitler and his regime had slaughtered over six million Jews and several other citizens whom they considered "inferior".

All by making laws, to have guns removed from innocent citizens, the Nazis were able to carry out their evilness with very little resistance.

THAT is a very truthful FACT not an opinion. So, I am on Carson's side when he says "Americans need guns to defend themselves against government"....there is NOT ONE DAMN THING WRONG WITH THAT STATEMENT...

That so-called small group of ARMED Citizens may have very well been enough, to make some of those cowardly NAZI BASTARDS to rethink their EVIL INTENTIONS.

Of coarse we will NEVER KNOW, because the REGIME got their way by disarming its citizens.

But this DICKHEAED Robinson, is doing NOTHING but propagating his UN-truthful opinion to try to sway people against Carson.

Carson is merely demanding that we must NOT ever allow ourselves to be disarmed....OR....well, we KNOW what happened and that could happen again.

My 2 cents.

[Exterminator]

I'm guessing you didn't take the time to actually research the history of gun control laws in Germany before you posted this ridiculous tripe.

Then, of course, there's the whole subject of how completely ineffective personal firearms would be against the largest and best equipped military on the planet...another ridiculous assertion. 

Carson's a whack job...that's a fact.

[The Troll]

  Ben Carson is just another 9-9-9.      Just the man for the Bird Boy.      

[me]

You all are just being racist.

[Henry Hawk]

Carson's a whack job...that's a fact.

Racist!!  c'mon, just admit it! 

[Exterminator]

You're idiots; c'mon, just admit it!   

[Henry Hawk]

You're idiots; c'mon, just admit it!   

No, no....I do believe it is YOU whom the idiocy lies....

[Exterminator]

No, no....I do believe it is YOU whom the idiocy lies....

...says the guy who can't form a cohesive sentence.

[me]

...says the guy who can't form a cohesive sentence.

He speaks the truth though. You are racist as well as an idiot.

[Exterminator]

"Anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that 'my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.'" - Isaac Asimov

[Locutus]

"Anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that 'my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.'" - Isaac Asimov

Isaac was spot on when he said that.  It's demonstrated here almost daily, and sadly, this is a microcosm of society as a whole. 

[Exterminator]

Isaac was spot on when he said that.  It's demonstrated here almost daily, and sadly, this is a microcosm of society as a whole.

[Henry Hawk]

I couldn't agree more....

[libby]

OK, y'all, and especially you, HH.  let's see what you think about the following, written by another black columnist, who decided to visit Johns Hopkins. From today's Washington Post:

   
At Johns Hopkins, there's little to show Ben Carson worked there

By Courtland Milloy Columnist October 27 at 7:19 PM

During a recent visit to Johns Hopkins Children's Center in Baltimore, I expected to find some kind of tribute to Ben Carson. After all, before he became a GOP candidate for president, he'd reigned as king of pediatric neurosurgery at the venerable institution for 29 years.

Perhaps I'd discover a mural in the lobby depicting Carson's hands, reaching from the clouds, healing children around the world. "Gifted Hands," as in the title of his autobiography. Or "God-guided hands," as he calls them on the campaign trail.

Not there.

Maybe there would be a "Gentle Ben" doctor doll in the gift shop.
Not there, either.

I began asking employees and even visitors whether Hopkins was showing proper respect to the acclaimed brain surgeon. A receptionist looked at me as if I'd lost my mind.

Most of the people I talked to were African American, like Carson. And nearly all of them were as socioeconomically conservative as Carson. They, too, expressed an ardent belief in hard work, personal responsibility, a loyalty to family and, above all, faith in God.

Such a group might have been easy pickings for a Republican Party looking to become more racially diverse. But not a GOP that continues to move closer to the far right and backs policies that seemingly do more harm than good to America's black citizens.

For a different view of Carson, I called Reginald Davis and Donlin Long, neurosurgeons who were on the team that in 1987 pioneered the first successful separation of twins conjoined at the head. That was the case that made Carson famous.

"Ben is like a brother to me, and Donlin is our neurosurgical father," explained Davis, who is director of research at the Laser Spine Institute in Tampa. He went on to say: "Some of what comes out of Ben's mouth, I might not have said it that way. But the feelings behind it are sincere, and there is usually a kernel of truth to it.
"
Carson's personal journey — from black kid raised in a Detroit ghetto to world-famous brain surgeon — had been so compelling that few ever learned that Davis, chief resident of neurosurgery at the time, is also black.

Despite Carson's effort to share the limelight, he ended up getting virtually all of the credit while the 70-member team he led was all but forgotten. One man, perceived by millions to have accomplished with a single pair of "gifted hands" what could only have been done by a multitude of medical experts.
Had that ego-boosting narrative fermented delusions of being leader of the free world?

"Ben is not the typical neurosurgeon with a very large ego," said Long, a retired chief of neurosurgery at Hopkins now in private practice in Lutherville, Md.

"If his story was being promoted, it did not come from him. Not only were African Americans anxious to have a hero like Ben, I think lots of Americans were anxious to see his success as a sign that years of injustice were being addressed and we were really doing something to allow African Americans to accomplish what they were able to accomplish."

Maybe Carson no longer wanted to be seen as "having been allowed" to do anything. Too liberal, perhaps, too much credit owed to affirmative action. "A person can do anything on his own" has become the mantra of the most fervent members of the GOP. All it takes is guts, guns and God.

On the second floor of the hospital, a "milestones in medicine" timeline stretches along a hallway wall. I finally came across a tribute to Carson. It was a small photo located on the bottom of the timeline, in a row set aside for people who had received awards.

Most other surgeons had larger photographs accompanying citations of their pioneering work. There's one of Levi Watkins, for instance, an African American heart surgeon who, in 1980, "introduces a surgical procedure that will save the lives of hundreds of thousands of people."

I asked an African American couple perusing the timeline if they thought that Carson's photograph ought to be enlarged. The woman held up a hand, thumb and index fingers about a half-inch a part.

"Smaller," she said.