Tuesday, November 10, 2015

An Open Letter to Ben Carson




Dear Mr. Carson:
It's certainly been a busy week for you, hasn't it? I bet you never thought you'd be on the proverbial hot seat like you've been. Questions coming at you from the media in rapid succession over several controversial statements you've made about your personal life over the past fifty years. It's been a deluge. Requests for clarification. Demands for the truth. Elaboration. Affirmation. Substantiation. Confirmation. No wonder you seem exhausted, frustrated and just plain fed up.

I'd be too if I were you. Except I'm not you. I'm not running for president, but more importantly, I haven't boasted that I tried to slam a hammer into my mother's head, or that I stabbed someone in the "abdomen." Or that I met Gen. William Westmoreland in 1969 and was offered a full scholarship to West Point (it's a free school). Or that I saved a bunch of white kids during the riots after Dr. Martin Luther King's assassination. Or that I was the only "honest" kid in a Yale classroom.  

I also never suggested that millions of Jews in Nazi Germany could've escaped the Holocaust had they been armed with guns. I've never said that people go to prison straight and come out gay. I've also never said that Obamacare is the worst thing since slavery. Or that Muslims should not be president. Or that rape babies shouldn't be aborted. Or that Joseph built the pyramids to store grain. But you have.

To paraphrase Forrest Gump, "Crazy is as crazy does. Mama always said you can't outgrow crazy." Yeah, and you can't run away from it either. Or blame your crazy on the media. No, Dr. Carson, the shitstorm you now find yourself sailing in is completely self-inflicted. It's your outlandish comments, your bizarre behavior, your apparent pathology that's inviting this piercing scrutiny. But in an effort to gain sympathy and raise funds, you stood before the news cameras last week and chastised the media for "piling on" and perpetrating a "witch hunt." And you're continuing to play the victim card.

You're running for President of The United States of America. Leader of the free world. Commander in Chief of the world's greatest militia.  Yet you have no political experience whatsoever. Just a very compelling personal narrative of humble beginnings marred by violence; followed by intense ambition; tremendous career achievement; and all made possible by divine intervention. You brag of hurting people with bricks, bats and hammers, and that you stabbed someone. Yet your position is that the media is not supposed to question any of this absurdity. And if they do it's a witch hunt!? Can it be a witch hunt if it was you who brought up all this kooky stuff? And since it was you who brought it all up, isn't it therefore fair game for the media?

Oh how I long for the good old days, when the one thing we could all agree on, whether Democrat or Republican, was that our presidential candidates should never have stabbed anyone. But not you, Dr. Carson. You wear this alleged incident like a badge of courage. In fact, you seem upset that people are doubting the truthfulness of this story. One thing's for sure: should you be elected, thanks to America's racial progress, you won't be the nation's first black president. But you'd definitely be the first to have ever knifed someone in the gut! 

The fact that you're now getting battered in the press is no one's fault but your own. I'm sorry Doc, but lies matter. And they matter big time when you're running for president. You're on the hot seat now for sure, but it's not because, as you claim, you're a "threat" to progressives. Or because "there is a desperation, on behalf of some, to try and find a way to tarnish" you. Even the venerable Wall Street Journal, certainly no bastion of the 'liberal media', has questioned the accuracy and legitimacy of several major elements of your biography.

To be sure, you're woefully ill-prepared to run for the highest office in the land. You lack the necessary experience, and worse, you've been sounding like a loon. That press conference last week? You were whining and ranting and appearing unhinged. You think the kitchen is too hot now? I can assure you, Mr. Frontrunner, that it's only gonna get hotter.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Considering Carson and Trump together, I find that the first thing that comes to mind is an answer Bob Dylan gave -- the question itself gives you a clue to how long ago it was asked -- to a reporter's question as to why he allowed his hair to grow so long. Dylan jocularly said that he found he could think more clearly with his hair on the outside of his head...

Anonymous said...

I wonder what his next lie will be. Probably something along the lines of "I ain't no ways tired..."