Carson, Trump clash over youth recollections ideology

“And if it does, where will his cadre of supporters go?”

About 55 percent of Defense Department employees viewed Carson favorably, according to a recent poll conducted by Government Executive’s research arm, Government Business Council, a full 10 points higher than the next closest candidate.

“There has been a lot of controversy”, she added, but “having people dissect everything you say is hard – he’s very courageous”. His campaign is over.

So, Dr. Carson, if you have made up or exaggerated a few particulars about your past, admit it and move on. As Guy Benson of Townhall reminded Republicans, “Carson’s declarative sentence, written as an adult, that he “was offered a full scholarship to West Point” simply isn’t factually accurate”. Carson caught a huge break that this was the first one to get really significant media coverage because it is the weakest known example of him fibbing about his background and because Politico badly overplayed their hand. The dissimilarity is that Carson’s suspect stories all seem to have a feel of being “biblical” in nature in that they don’t even seem meant to be taken literally, but rather as parables created to build the narrative of a man whose life has been touched directly by God.

In the report on which Trump has focused, CNN couldn’t find anyone who could confirm Carson’s claims of attacking his mother with a hammer, hitting someone with a combination lock, or trying to stab a friend as a young teenager. Only Carson showed up and was photographed by the school paper as the class’ “most honest student”. The offer was not, as I recall, from him, but there were multiple other officers around. Carson said all of his classmates walked out of the room but he remained, only to learn that the professor was just conducting an honesty check. He remembers he did, but the Wall Street Journal reporter could find no record of the course or Carson’s participation. [‘It was] a hoax, ‘ the teacher said.

“It’s been proven that it wasn’t a lie and none of the things are lies”, Carson said.

Carson said he never claimed to have been awarded a scholarship and pointed out that West Point’s website calls the free schooling a scholarship.

Criticizing the news media as unfair, Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson is defending his past descriptions of receiving a scholarship offer for the U.S. Military Academy at West Point even though it does not offer scholarships and he never applied for admission.

Carson, a retired neurosurgeon and political newbie, described as a “witch hunt” media accusations that he lied about his college education and his violent past. The increase in scrutiny stems from a story on Politico published this past Friday.

In an editor’s note, the POLITICO story now explains that “Carson said he received a “full scholarship” from West Point, in writing and in public appearances over the years – but in fact he did not and there is actually no such thing as a full scholarship to the taxpayer-funded academy”.

The article demonstrated confusion about service academy admissions and benefits.

The final reason that I am confident that Carson has fudged his biography is that he basically told us so at the last debate. “I’ve got to be seen as a viable candidate outside my home state”.

“I’m blown away by his notoriety”, Davis said. And I don’t know. He said the media perceive him to be a threat that must be neutralized: I’m a threat to the progressives [and] the secular progress movement in this country. “And I was very flattered by that”.

The other high-profile Carson anecdote under scrutiny right now also fits this pattern. On Saturday, he lashed out via Twitter at “biased media” and praised his campaign for being able to raise $3.5 million this week amid the issues.