The media has been working overtime trying to discredit Republican presidential candidate, Ben Carson. Their latest smear is to question a claim in his book, Gifted Hands, that he was offered a scholarship to West Point, accusing him of making it up. On several occasions the media have taken to twisting his words. When asked what he would do if he were facing a deranged killer on a rampage, he said he hoped he would be able to fight back instead just letting himself be killed. Median translation: Carson blames the victims of gun violence for not fighting back.
Carson pushed back on CNN and elsewhere, arguing that the media never scrutinized Barack Obama in this way, specifically pointing to the media's total lack of curiosity about Obama's sealed college records.
I would be willing to bet that those records are sealed because they will show that Obama lied on his application to Columbia, saying that he was born in Kenya, probably to give himself a better chance for admission, or for some other benefit afforded foreign students. It wouldn't be the only time he made that claim. He said the same thing later in a biographical sketch for publisher, Acton & Dystel in a pamphlet describing their stable of authors. Here is an image of it:
Obama's literary agent at the time, Miriam Goderich, claimed it was a clerical error on her part. The media either ignored the controversy altogether, or bent over backwards to give Obama and his literary agent the benefit of the doubt, offering a litany of reasons why it couldn't possibly be anything but an honest mistake.
I don't believe it. It is so similar to the Elizabeth Warren controversy in which she claimed to be part Cherokee, a claim that Cherokees dispute. Her claim appears to have played a part in getting her a professorship at Harvard, though, and it certainly didn't disrupt her campaign to become U.S. Senator from Massachusetts. Our progressive media just accepted her story — end of controversy.
Somehow I suspect the media are going to take their lumps this election cycle. At least I hope they do. For decades the media have decided our elections for us, reporting favorably on their chosen candidates while casting their opponents — almost always Republicans — in a negative light.
So Ben Carson is a real threat to progressives. As a popular and accomplished African-American neurosurgeon Ben Carson could draw African-American voters away from Democrats. The media are eager to smear him in any way they can to prevent that from happening, but Ben Carson is forcefully pushing back, and so far he seems to be winning. Maybe Republicans across the board can take a lesson from him.
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