Tuesday, November 10, 2015

The Ben Carson West Point Story, Fact or Fiction?

Image from source, Esquire
I love deductive reasoning, puzzle games, investigative journalism, forensic evidence gathering, the lot. If the CBS slate of programming can be used as evidence, most Americans do as well. But it doesn't seem to be applied to much more than procedural dramas, certainly not much in real life.

That's why I love it when someone actually puts brain to task, and puzzles out, what is true and what is not true in a given story. You get at that by finding out what can't possibly be true, what is undeniably true, and then fitting in the plausible connective tissue, and disregard the fantastic and the dubious. When this is done, the Ben Carson West Point story comes down to this: Ben Carson lied.

Did Politico do a bit of shoddy journalism? Looks that way. But they weren't wrong.

Don't believe me (ahem, Dan)? Check it out.

[Excerpt]

Ben Carson Debunked: Inside His Made-Up West Point Story

Let's re-cap what has happened in the last few days since that first explosive story came out in Politico…and was observed here by our own Charlie Pierce on Friday. To wit, the Tale of Cadet Ben Carson. On Friday, Politico posted a sensational, but sadly incomplete, evaluation of some of Dr. Carson's claims about his past. Specifically their story asserted that Carson had not been given a "scholarship" to West Point, as he claimed in his book(s) and in multiple accounts of his past in speeches and interviews since 1990, when his first co-written autobiography appeared. . .

Read more at: Esquire

4 comments:

  1. Trump versus Carson is akin to child abuse.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I have problem with his story.
    The Army, through their printed ads said they offered scholarships, that cannot be argued.
    According to him, many people said he would have easily been admitted to West Point. Even if they didn't offer him a "scholarship", what is a scholarship? Money to pay for college, including books, tuition, room and board, medical etc.
    He never said he was accepted at or even applied to West Point.
    So, in the end, this is a non-story, just like Trump's and Hillary's hair.
    But it shows what lengths Politico will go after a Black conservative. They didn't go after Obama when he was first running for president, so why are they going after Carson with a bogus story.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Carson came up with a print ad that contained a reference to "scholarship." I'm not sure that adds any credence to his story. It's not like that ad was part of his narrative. Likely someone on his staff or an internet sleuth found that ad and brought it to his attention. It doesn't solve all of the other problems with his story, as detailed in the Esquire piece. And it's only one of many dubious stories he's told to puff up his history.

    Ben Carson has one stellar achievement, and that his his medical history. He has no governing experience, has shown little understanding of foreign policy or economic theory. And his rags-to-riches backstory seems to be replete with dubious claims. That doesn't leave much. I can't figure out how he's risen to the top of the heap.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. President Obama: no understanding of foreign or economic theory, before he ran for president and still has none, Obama had only a slight experience in government.
      Obama never had that rags to riches story.
      And I have no idea how he got to be president.
      I would take Carson for president over Obama every time.

      Delete

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