Ben Carson Admits Fabricating West Point Scholarship

Yeah, another BO lie! Those "junk policies" BO referred to are now the ACA Bronze plan...high deductible, high co-pay plans...and the most widely selected by people on the exchanges who can't have their premiums fully subsidized.

 

Ben Carson’s Past Faces Deeper Questions
In harsh light of presidential politics, parts of his inspirational biography are questioned

The day after Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was killed in 1968, Ben Carson’s black classmates unleashed their anger and grief on white students who were a minority at Detroit’s Southwestern High.

Mr. Carson, then a junior with a key to a biology lab where he worked part time, told The Wall Street Journal last month that he protected a few white students from the attacks by hiding them there.

It is a dramatic account of courage and kindness, and it couldn’t be confirmed in interviews with a half-dozen of Mr. Carson’s classmates and his high school physics teacher. The students all remembered the riot. None recalled hearing about white students hiding in the biology lab, and Mr. Carson couldn’t remember any names of those he sheltered.

“It may have happened, but I didn’t see it myself or hear about it,” said Gregory Vartanian, a white classmate of Mr. Carson’s who served in the ROTC with Mr. Carson and is now a retired U.S. Marshal.

Mr. Carson’s biography, a rise from poverty to become a top neurosurgeon at Johns Hopkins University, is central to his candidacy for the Republican presidential nomination. Now, his story—told in nine books and countless inspirational speeches over the past 25 years—has come under the harsh scrutiny of presidential politics, where rivals and media hunt for embellishments and omissions that can hobble a campaign.

In 2008, Democratic Party candidate Hillary Clinton said she was mistaken when she claimed she and her daughter, Chelsea, had come under sniper fire and had to run for cover during a trip to Bosnia in 1996 while she was first lady. A video of the trip unearthed after her comments showed no gunfire.

The threat to the Carson candidacy is that the inconsistencies or hard-to-check anecdotes, which were told long before he ever considered a presidential run, will put off voters only now getting to know him.

Mr. Carson’s campaign manager, Barry Bennett, said Friday there was “no evidence” that any aspect of Mr. Carson’s biography wasn’t true. “There’s no facts saying they are not true. We are guilty until proven innocent,” he said. “You have no reason to believe that they are not true. There’s no evidence to point to the fact that they are even questionable.”

In his 1990 autobiography, “Gifted Hands,” Mr. Carson writes of a Yale psychology professor who told Mr. Carson, then a junior, and the other students in the class—identified by Mr. Carson as Perceptions 301—that their final exam papers had “inadvertently burned,” requiring all 150 students to retake it. The new exam, Mr. Carson recalled in the book, was much tougher. All the students but Mr. Carson walked out.

“The professor came toward me. With her was a photographer for the Yale Daily News who paused and snapped my picture,” Mr. Carson wrote. “ ‘A hoax,’ the teacher said. ‘We wanted to see who was the most honest student in the class.’ ” Mr. Carson wrote that the professor handed him a $10 bill.

No photo identifying Mr. Carson as a student ever ran, according to the Yale Daily News archives, and no stories from that era mention a class called Perceptions 301. Yale Librarian Claryn Spies said Friday there was no psychology course by that name or class number during any of Mr. Carson’s years at Yale.

In books and speeches, Mr. Carson has said he hated living in poverty, vowed to grow rich, and lashed out in anger at others until a religious transformation at age 14.

When CNN sent reporters to his former neighborhood in Detroit to verify Mr. Carson’s stories of violence, including attempting to stab a boy in the stomach, none who knew Mr. Carson as a youth recalled any such trouble. Instead, most of Mr. Carson’s former friends and neighbors remember him much as he is today: soft-spoken and studious.

In his 1996 book, “Think Big: Unleashing Your Potential for Excellence,” Mr. Carson identified the boy as a friend named “Bob.” Mr. Carson told Fox News on Thursday the boy was actually a “close relative.” Mr. Carson said, “I’ve never used the true names of people in books.”

Also disputed in a report Friday by Politico: Mr. Carson’s assertion, first raised in the 1990 book, that he turned down a “scholarship” offer from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point—though the academy is free to those accepted. Mr. Bennett said Friday that Mr. Carson was offered a “nomination” to West Point but never applied.

“Lying, I believe, is a grave sin and there’s just no way that I would be sitting here lying about something like this,” Mr. Carson said Friday on Fox News.

Last month, Mr. Carson said in a radio interview that, as a young doctor, he had a gun stuck in his ribs at a Popeye’s restaurant in Baltimore near Johns Hopkins University. “A guy comes in and puts a gun in my ribs. And I just said, ‘I believe that you want the guy behind the counter,’” Mr. Carson said. “He said, ‘Oh, okay.’” The Baltimore Police Department later said it couldn’t find a report matching the incident Mr. Carson described.

In response to a question at a recent GOP presidential debate, Mr. Carson said he “didn’t have an involvement” with Mannatech Inc., a multilevel marketing company that sells nutritional supplements, and called any suggestion to the contrary “propaganda.” Mr. Carson, who has taken the company’s products, appeared in videos that could until recently be found on Mannatech’s website, including two filmed in 2013 and styled like commercials.

Mr. Carson also has given four paid speeches at Mannatech gatherings; the proceeds from three went to a Carson-affiliated charity. Mannatech settled false-advertising charges with Texas in 2009.

One reason that Mr. Carson’s stories are difficult to check is that he navigated the turbulent times of his young adulthood without leaving much of a trace. He arrived as a scholarship student at Yale University in 1969 to a campus engulfed in protests but said he avoided them.

Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson spoke to The Wall Street Journal about his indifference to the Vietnam War protests during his time at Yale. Photo: Madeline Marshall/The Wall Street Journal
“A lot of those students who were doing the protesting were also students who were involved in a lot of things that I didn’t believe in,” he told the Journal. “Drugs, premarital sex, free love, alcohol. And it just wasn’t the crowd that I particularly wanted to get involved with.”

Mr. Carson was assigned to Davenport College, a four-story brick dormitory with a gothic facade where future Baltimore Mayor Kurt Schmoke invited anti-war speakers. Yet, when other students discussed politics and their changing world over meals in the cafeteria, Mr. Carson rarely spoke up, according to interviews with more than 50 Davenport College dorm residents of that era.

“He made no impression on you at all, other than a cheerful smile and a ‘Hello,’” said Ron Taylor, one of seven black students in the Davenport class of 1973.

Those acquainted with Mr. Carson said he was a serious student, typically wearing a pocket protector and toting a reddish-brown briefcase.

“He would go to bed at like 9 p.m. and get up at 4 a.m. or 5 a.m. and put on a suit, a tie and a jacket and a button-down shirt and study in the early morning,” said Thomas Noonan, an actor and Mr. Carson’s roommate their sophomore year.

http://www.wsj.com/article_email/be...uestions-1446861864-lMyQjAxMTI1NTAxNzgwMTcxWj

 

BS prove it! You love Obamacare remember?

 

BO used the "junk policy" bit to scare people, then created a system where the most in need were exploited (for political gain). How typically liberal.

 

Again, a stupid ass partisan opinion with no proof. Typical wing nut.

 

You seem to forget, in my consulting role, I spend a lot of time in hospitals interacting with all levels of administration. I attend meetings, seminars, webinars, etc. My wife holds a supervisory position as well. See, I spend a lot of time immersed in the health care system whereas you can only lay claim to surfing the internet while processing student loan applications.

 

I hadn't better do anything. Sorry, but I was not referring to you and Mr. RBGUPI has ample evidence of his idiotic posts.

 

That is like saying Holder/Obama had no fault in Brian terry's death because they denied giving guns.

 

Unfortunately for everyone, and I mean everyone, once doubt has been cast on an insignificant or trivial event, the box is unlocked for every other word to be scrutinized. No doubt Mr. Carson was offered (a referral maybe?) West Point. Encouraged to apply maybe. His wording in the book implies something else; how good he was might be what he was working towards. I don't think he lied. I think he wrote a book..engrandizing (is that a word?).

I had an opportunity back in the 80's to hear Dr. Carson speak at a very small church function, in Detroit (of course), in an evangelical setting. He is not my candidate of choice (Go Donald Trump!) I remember being impressed by his achievements in the medical profession.

An aside, having absolutely nothing to do with this topic, really, I was an ROTC student for 3 years in Detroit. In the early 70's. I remember recruiting agents being there and available ALL the time. They were pushing hard back then. I nearly went in myself, until a tragedy in my family required me to 'unlist' (with legal help of course.)

Ben probably really is a good guy, I think. And I think they're going to eat him up and spit him out if they can.

Go Donald!

 

Democrats are attacking Dr. Carson from every angle, but, nothing is sticking. This "West Point" story is nothing more than a hatchet job by Politico (who has already changed their story to reflect that Dr. Carson did nothing other than what he already said he did). Campaign contributors realized this was an unsubstantiated attack on Dr. Carson and have responded by donating MILLIONS to Carson's campaign in the last few days.

Democrats are jealous that the Republicans are offering not only an African-American, but Hispanics, Caucasians and a female. Democrats only WISH they could offer such diversity, but their only claim to diversity this election is a female; Republicans are offering the same... AND MUCH MORE!

But, this is the way politics works. Republicans will continue attacking Hillary on everything from Rose Law Firm, Vince Foster, Travelgate, Chinagate, Filegate, Whitewater, Benghazi, the Clinton Foundation and FBI investigations right up to her illegal e-mail server scam that she was running out of an old, converted bathroom.

Anything Hillary says or does between now and election day will be parsed, picked apart and used against her in every way imaginable. Not only that, but her past will be resurrected endlessly and each mistake, lie and untruth will be repeated continuously in order to ensure that she is not the next occupant of the White House. Ya gotta love it!

 

Let's see. Did she lie about the Marines? Did she lie about the Army? Or is the whole thing a lie?

FLASHBACK: Hillary Claimed She Tried To Join The Marines In 1975, Or Was It The Army?

Hillary Clinton once claimed that she tried to join the Marines in 1975, shortly before marrying her draft-dodging boyfriend, future president Bill Clinton. Or did Hillary Diane Rodham attempt to join the Army, as Clinton suggested in 2008? Or did she indeed try to sign up for the Marine Corps as part of an experiment to see how receptive the military was to female volunteers, as her friends have suggested?

 

Selma occurred in 1965. Anyone want to guess want Obama was born?

“This young man named Barack Obama got one of those tickets [to study in the U.S.], and he met this woman who’s great-great-great-great grandfather had owned slaves,” he said.


“But she had a different idea. There’s some good craziness going on, because they looked at each other and they decided that we know that in the world that it has been it might not be possible for us to get together and have a child. But something’s stirring across the country because of what happened in Selma, Alabama because some folks are willing to march across a bridge. So they got together… Barack Obama, Jr. was born.


“So don’t tell me I don’t have a claim on Selma, Alabama. Don’t tell me I’m not coming home when I come to Selma, Alabama. I’m here because somebody marched for our freedom. I’m here because somebody marched for me. I stand on the shoulders of giants,” he continued.

 

So all you can say is you don't like his political opinions?

 

I guess moron joe thinks, because Carson happens to be black, he must be a liar. Isn't that what liberals have said when BO gets called out?

 

You have CDS... Carson Derangement Syndrome. Plus, you are a racist

 

You morons must hate women, Jews, and Catholics. Why do you hate women, Jews, and Catholics? Misogynists! Anti-Semitic racists! Religious elitists!

Again, feel free to call me a racist when you've elected as many black men as I have.

 

Oh, I get it now....liberals support minorities who knows their place!

 

Interesting! Just how many "black men" have "you elected"? Were you the only one voting or did others really do the electing?