Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

Ben Carson’s former colleague: He told me the story about stabbing someone before he became famous
Hotair ^ | 11/10/2015 | AllahPundit

Posted on 11/10/2015 7:38:57 AM PST by SeekAndFind

Another nice catch by Andrew Kaczynski and BuzzFeed to go with the old clipping of Carson’s mother telling a newspaper in 1997 that the stabbing incident most certainly happened. Nothing’s going to prove that definitively, but knowing for a fact that Carson was telling this story before he had any reason to (when he had every professional reason not to) is the next best thing. And every time one of Carson’s biographical anecdotes is tested and checks out upon close scrutiny, the impulse to believe him among those who are already well disposed to him and see him as the most honest in the field grows stronger. The perception that he’s fought the media and won could be a tonic to voters.

This isn’t the only corroborating evidence for a Carson story floating around today either. Legal scholar Seth Barrett Tillman chipped in with his memory of being informally recruited to attend West Point at a conference for high-school students in the late 1970s:

During the conference, a major approached me individually, by name, and pulled me out of earshot of other student-attendees. I have always assumed he (or his colleagues) had similar conversations with many if not with all the other student-attendees. I was told that if I apply, I would get in. It was as simple as that. I had very good standardized test scores and very good grades from my high school. When the major told me that I would get in if I applied, I believed him. I was told that West Point would find a Senator or Representative to nominate me, or I would come in with a number of students the academy could choose itself…

My scores and grades were good, very good, but I have no reason to think mine were the highest among the many student-attendees. I cannot believe that I was the only person to have received, what was in effect, assurances that if I applied I would get in. By any fair-minded description: it was an offer to attend West Point. Albeit, the offer was not in writing; it was an informal oral offer. Surely, many, many other people received similar offers. I expect that large list also includes Ben Carson.

PS: This conference was less than a decade after the end of the Vietnam War. This was a time when the service academies still had to make some substantial efforts to attract candidates with strong academic records. I expect those days are long gone.

One of the sticking points about Carson’s memory of being “offered” a “scholarship” (i.e. free tuition) to West Point during a conversation with Gen. Westmoreland was the idea that recruiters wouldn’t and couldn’t guarantee admission when encouraging a student to apply. It’s not an “offer” unless an acceptance letter has been issued, right? Wrong, per Tillman. Some students were sufficiently attractive to the military that the application process was treated as a formality. It’s not hard to believe that Carson, a brilliant student involved in ROTC who’d overcome poverty, would be seen as worthy of an informal offer if so many others were.

Now, anyone want to explain to me why it’s fallen to BuzzFeed instead of Carson’s campaign to dig this stuff up? I don’t get it. Exit question: What’s the next story that’ll be proved entirely or mostly true? This one seems similar to something that really did happen, although the detail about a professor rewarding Carson for his honesty is hard to square with the fact that the make-up exam was a prank.

Update: Well well. Kaczynski scores a hat trick by answering the exit question:

In an interview with BuzzFeed News on Monday, Curtis Bakal, an editorial assistant at the satirical Yale Record who says he helped write the fake test, said he was “99% certain the way Carson remembers it is correct.”

"When I read about the story in the Wall Street Journal, I immediately said, to my wife and friend, 'That was the prank we played at the Record! And Ben Carson was in the class,'" said Bakal, who noted he wasn’t actually present during the taking of the fake test. "We did a mock parody of the Yale Daily News during the exam period in January 1970, and in this parody we had a box that said: 'So-and-so section of the exam has been lost in a fire. Professor so-and-so is going to give a makeup exam.'"

"We got a room to do do the test in and one of us from the Record impersonated a proctor to give the test," he said.

CLICK ABOVE LINK FOR THE VIDEO



TOPICS: Constitution/Conservatism; Culture/Society; News/Current Events; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: 2016; 2016election; amnesty; andrewkaczynski; bencarson; bizarre; buzzfeed; carson; demagogicparty; election2016; elections; kaczucker; memebuilding; partisanmediashill; partisanmediashills; stabbing
Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-31 last
To: Starstruck

Our candidate Cruz is being frozen and boycotted by a trifecta of the MSM, RNC and GOP(e). As long as they all ignore him, we don’t have a chance.


21 posted on 11/10/2015 9:19:36 AM PST by catfish1957 (I display the Confederate Battle Flag with pride in honor of my brave ancestors who fought w/ valor)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 17 | View Replies]

To: pugmama
His last debate was awful. I was embarrassed watching him fumble around.

i will hand it to him, it was a notch better than Rick Perry's final 2012 debate. :)

22 posted on 11/10/2015 9:20:52 AM PST by catfish1957 (I display the Confederate Battle Flag with pride in honor of my brave ancestors who fought w/ valor)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 16 | View Replies]

To: SeekAndFind
This has been an interesting play to lower his polling and take Carson out.

The one stream media focuses on events from a time in Dr. Carson's life that highlight the profound before and after transformation of his personality and life path.

However, his actions in that "before" picture are something most consider to be out of character for a future President and more like that of a future prisoner.

By focusing on those events and that time in his life, the one stream media are able to tarnish the man, to whatever degree, using his former young self's bad behavior before his amazing transformation.

They planted the thought that Dr. Carson is guilty now as a grown man of being what he used to be as an adolescent boy.

Next in that combination, they then hit him with allegations that his stories aren't true as told or written.

Even if all of his stories are demonstrated to be the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, their lies about him linger on in the minds of voters.

Investigative Journalism's candidate vetting is just the one stream media peeing in the party punch bowl like they always do.

No wonder we love it when Trump bitch slaps them hard and makes them cry.

In a way, we get to live vicariously through Donald Trump.

"Slap 'em again! Slap 'em again! Harder! Harder!"
"Slap 'em again! Slap 'em again! Harder! Harder!"

23 posted on 11/10/2015 9:22:02 AM PST by GBA (Just a hick in paradise)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Georgia Girl 2
Cruz has to step over Carson to get to Trump. :-)

Some polls are saying Cruz has to step over Trump to get to Carson:-)

24 posted on 11/10/2015 9:27:06 AM PST by Starstruck (I'm usually sarcastic. Deal with it.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 20 | View Replies]

To: Starstruck

Some people think the sky is green. :-)


25 posted on 11/10/2015 9:29:09 AM PST by Georgia Girl 2 (The only purpose of a pistol is to fight your way back to the rifle you should never have dropped)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 24 | View Replies]

To: Georgia Girl 2

How easy would it be to get someone to say the incident with the test hoax was real? Only one person comes forward???


26 posted on 11/10/2015 9:43:36 AM PST by Catsrus ( I callz 'em as I seez 'em.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 6 | View Replies]

To: SeekAndFind
I can just see tomorrow's headline:
Carson became a surgeon so he could keep stabbing people.
27 posted on 11/10/2015 10:49:40 AM PST by aimhigh (1 John 3:21)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: SeekAndFind

It would be nice if we did not have as president someone who stabbed another person.


28 posted on 11/10/2015 10:51:04 AM PST by minnesota_bound
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Georgia Girl 2
.........the media has their agenda.
29 posted on 11/10/2015 10:52:59 AM PST by tioga
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 2 | View Replies]

To: Georgia Girl 2

Man! If only I had known that all I had to do to become famous was to stab someone. I really needed to have been much more violent in my misspent youth. Just think of how much time I wasted trying to be a nice guy. Maybe nice guys really do finish last...


30 posted on 11/10/2015 12:06:17 PM PST by Desron13
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 2 | View Replies]

To: rbg81

It’s one of the most bizarre things I’ve ever seen. He’s insisting thst yuh-hun I did to stab my mother. SNL had a bit that he was the first black man in America to refuse a perfectly good alibi.


31 posted on 11/10/2015 3:14:51 PM PST by lovesdogs
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 3 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-31 last

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson