The Special "Carson is a Fucking Lunatic" Thread

[SteelCurtain]

Not only did that not source the quote (which is a fake, btw, see my earlier post) but that website was the equivalent of AiG for bias.

Don't be lazy.

[TheRocketSurgeon]

I'd like to see that quote sourced. Not that I'd put it past him, it just looks too ridiculous to be real.

The West Point thing is such a bullshit issue. As an academy grad (USNA) and someone who was recruited to a service academy, this sounds plausible. I met with Commanders and even a retired Rear Admiral who promised me admission. They all, to a man, pumped up the idea that I wouldn't have to pay a dime for college. Once I accepted I told everyone at school that I got a full ride scholarship to the Naval Academy. I had no clue why that statement made no sense until I actually got there.

It makes sense that he thought he was being promised a scholarship to USMA. He was in ROTC, a top performer, smart (on some topics), and would have been in contact with military officers regularly.

Steel, it's still too much of a stretch. I also met first with Air Force and Naval officers (I was also considering Annapolis), and had long conversations/interviews about my aspirations to service, and they too explained that it was all expenses paid ("full ride scholarship" was the term one used), but as you know all too well, that's only a fraction of the process. For a teenager who was actively recruited, I suppose it could be possible to not know the difference until arriving less than a year after the process began... but this guy actively used the Academies as a part of his "personal story" narrative in order to promote his political career. He should know better; not knowing the difference at this point, while continuing to use the story for years, demonstrates that he either knows no one from the Academies and/or deliberately ignored or stretched the truth. I commanded my AF JROTC unit and graduated near the top of my class, with the 2nd highest (tied) ACT score in my high school, and had made my intent to attend an Academy known since junior high school, so I too spoke with a lot of higher-level officers and related "muckety-mucks". If he had no idea what he was talking about, he should not have spoken about it in self-promotion; if he felt it was relevant and needed to know, that's what editors and fact checkers are hired to do.

While I would rather see political fights decided by who has the best ideas, I'm afraid it just doesn't work that way in reality; people vote on emotion at least as often as they vote on principle or analysis. If this jackass is knocked out because (all but his most die-hard) potential voters see the sort of character this implies, then I will not complain too much.

[SteelCurtain]

I agree. I am not saying it was ever okay for him to use the story as self promotion, my point was that the Politico story was bullshit, as evidenced by their reprint and changing of the headline three times.

[KevinM1]

So, is it true that Ben Carson defeated Voldemort by successfully completing a personality adjustment brain operation? And that the former evil one now goes by the name Cupcake?

[Minimalist]

Something like that.....

[Wyrd of Gawd]

As Politico notes:

http://www.politico.com/story/2015/11/be...int-215598

Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson on Friday conceded that he never applied nor was granted admission to West Point and attempted to recast his previous claims of a full scholarship to the military academy — despite numerous public and written statements to the contrary over the last few decades.

West Point has occupied a central place in Carson’s personal story for years. According to a tale told in his book, “Gifted Hands,” the then-17 year old was introduced in 1969 to Gen. William Westmoreland, who had just ended his command of U.S. forces in Vietnam, and the two dined together. That meeting, according to Carson’s telling, was followed by the offer of a “full scholarship” to the military academy.
West Point, however, has no record of Carson applying, much less being extended admission.
“In 1969, those who would have completed the entire process would have received their acceptance letters from the Army Adjutant General,” said Theresa Brinkerhoff, a spokeswoman for the academy. She said West Point has no records that indicate Carson even began the application process. “If he chose to pursue (the application process), then we would have records indicating such,” she said.
When presented by POLITICO with these facts, Carson’s campaign conceded he never applied.

What politician isn't a bullshitter?  He's just pissed that he got caught.


So quickly.

I'm sure they are diving deeply into the rest of his life.

Reading your source material simply proves that Carson didn't lie when he claimed that he had been promised a "full ride" to the USMA.  He could have been promised that but unless he actually has said that he had been nominated and then declined his statement isn't a lie.  And since the promise was probably verbally no one can really say that he's lying about it.  

If someone claims that he had a conversation with Ronald Reagan and that Ronnie said that he wanted him to be his VP can you prove that the guy was lying?  No, you can't.  That's because it was a private conversation and Ronnie is dead.  Now the guy's statement may be questionable if he was a total screw-up and was unqualified for the position.  But in Carson's case most people do acknowledge that he was qualified to have been admitted to the USMA.  The fact that there's no paper trail does not make him a liar unless he admits that he lied about it.

[Minimalist]

If it were just one thing you might have a point....although as the article notes he has told the story himself in writing and public for a long time and things never seem to come out the same way twice.  We also have his claim about trying to stab someone.... which no one knows about.  We have his claim that he was a "gangsta" growing up, but his neighbors remember him as a nerd with thick glasses.  And even that bastion of the "liberal" media, the Wall Street Journal noted that he was full of shit in claiming to have defended white classmates during a riot.  How many lies does it take to be a liar?  Add on his attempts to weasel himself out of business dealings with a corrupt company and a picture emerges of a man who is either a complete liar or delusional.


Meanwhile, Andy Borowitz joins in the fun.

http://www.newyorker.com/humor/borowitz-...NzY5NDg0S0

Carson: Loss of Keystone Leaves U.S. With No Place to Store Grain

[SteelCurtain]

Oh---the man's a liar.

This story very well could be a lie. But I think pointing out very plausible things like this does more damage to the idea that this man is woefully unqualified to be the next president because it gives credence to the idea that this is a witch hunt, and by connection all of the other shit is too.

[Minimalist]

Of course it's a witch hunt.  Why the hell do you think it takes us 3 fucking years to run an election?  These motherfuckers all have lots of witches to hunt. 

Listen, you are never going to convince the evangelical shits that their boyfriend is a liar. They don't care.  He says he loves fucking jesus and that is all they care about.  But I appreciate the fact that the press is digging through the shitbag's life and pointing out that he IS a liar.... or delusional.  And given his propensity for xtian crapola he might be more delusional than anything else.

[Minimalist]

The doctor is spinning like mad!



But, it's not helping.

http://www.rawstory.com/2015/11/ben-cars...-are-lies/

Carson wrote in Gifted Hands that the professor, who taught a class called Perceptions 301, had pulled a hoax on his 150 students by pretending they all had to re-sit a final exam because their papers had “inadvertently burned”.
According to Carson, every student apart from him refused to retake the exam. Once the prank was revealed, he wrote, the professor presented Carson with $10 as a reward for his honesty, and an article about the incident was published in the the Yale Daily News .
According to the Wall Street Journal, no such article appears in the archives of the campus newspaper and Yale has no record of any such class being taught.

I think the dumb fuck has early-onset Alzheimers.