The Politico headline was big and bold.
Ben Carson admits fabricating West Point scholarship
Carson's campaign on Friday admitted that a central point in his inspirational personal story was fabricated.
The story, posted at 11:34 in the morning on Friday began this way:
Ben Carson’s campaign on Friday admitted, in a response to an inquiry from POLITICO, that a central point in his inspirational personal story was fabricated: his application and acceptance into the U.S. Military Academy at West Point.
The academy has occupied a central place in Carson’s tale for years. According to a story told in Carson’s book, Gifted Hands, the then-17 year old was introduced in 1969 to Gen. William Westmoreland, who had just ended his command of U.S. forces in Vietnam, and the two dined together. That meeting, according to Carson’s telling, was followed by a “full scholarship” to the military academy.
The story was quickly refuted by the Carson campaign, which released a statement - found here at Sean Hannity’s web site:
“Dr Carson was the top ROTC student in the City of Detroit. In that role he was invited to meet General Westmoreland. He believes it was at a banquet. He can’t remember with specificity their brief conversation but it centered around Dr. Carson’s performance as ROTC City Executive Officer.
He was introduced to folks from West Point by his ROTC Supervisors. They told him they could help him get an appointment based on his grades and performance in ROTC. He considered it but in the end did not seek admission. There are “Service Connected" nominations for stellar High School ROTC appointments. Again he was the top ROTC student in Detroit. I would argue strongly that an Appointment is indeed an amazing full scholarship. Having ran several Congressional Offices I am very familiar with the Nomination process.
Again though his Senior Commander was in touch with West Point and told Dr. Carson he could get in, Dr Carson did not seek admission.
The Politico story is an outright lie.
Dr. Carson as the leading ROTC student in Detroit was told by his Commanders that he could get an Appointment to the Academy. He never said he was admitted or even applied.
The campaign never “admitted to anything”
This is what we have come to expect from Politico.”
By 4:38 p.m. -- five hours later -- Mediaite was headlining this story:
Politico Changes Headline of Controversial Ben Carson West Point Story
The Mediaite story begins:
Politico altered the headline and beginning of its controversial story on Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson which claimed that Carson’s campaign admitted that the former pediatric neurosurgeon “fabricated” an anecdote regarding his interest in West Point as a young ROTC cadet.
The change was first noticed by Daily Caller reporter Alex Pappas. The original headline read: “Ben Carson admits fabricating West Point scholarship.” It now reads: “Exclusive: Carson claimed West Point ‘scholarship’ but never applied.
Well. So for the good part of a day America was being fed a story about Ben Carson that wasn’t true. Was Carson deliberately lying? Clearly not. One can quibble over the wording in his book, or even criticize him for imprecision or a foggy memory, but in fact there was no “there” there.
Then over there in the precincts of ABC’s The View was the showdown between the liberal show hosts and Carly Fiorina. Fiorina had been insulted the other day by a cast member as having a “demented” look on her face during a debate. “Demented” as in derivative of “dementia.” Fiorina’s response was, in part, to say this to Sean Hannity before the latest showdown:
They don't like my message that progressive policies actually harm women instead of helping women. So in general, what the left does is, instead of debating on the merits of the issue, they want to demonize the messenger.
Meanwhile over on NBC as the network’s famous comedy show Saturday Night Live prepared to showcase Donald Trump as its November 7th host, leftist activists launched a petition to demand Trump be blocked from the show because of his views on illegal immigration. As the Huffington Post wrote it up:
Activists Pledge To Go After 'SNL' Advertisers Over Donald Trump Appearance
Protesters delivered more than 500,000 signatures demanding NBC un-invite the politician from hosting the show.
And in case you missed it, the group deportracism.com produced a charming (?) video of kids giving The Donald the middle finger accompanied by the F-bomb. Said one Luke Montgomery, the director of the video: "The adorable and articulate kids in the DeportRacism.com video are using bad word for a good cause.”
These three media stories may seem to have nothing in common - but in fact they have everything in common. Recall this statement from then-Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas in response to the left’s furious campaign to “bork” him:
“This is a circus. It's a national disgrace. And from my standpoint, as a black American, it is a high-tech lynching for uppity blacks who in any way deign to think for themselves, to do for themselves, to have different ideas, and it is a message that unless you kowtow to an old order, this is what will happen to you. You will be lynched, destroyed, caricatured by a committee of the U.S. Senate rather than hung from a tree.”
What the current stories have in common about Carson, Fiorina and Trump is that in one fashion or another all three are being targeted in this fashion because they are conservatives. And make no mistake, the fact that two of them are respectively a black man and a woman and the third has riled the Left wing’s racial division on the issue of illegal immigration decides the fury of the effort to try and bring them down. Or, as Justice Thomas put it that day of his confirmation hearings, these three are deigning “to think for themselves, to do for themselves, to have different ideas” - and as those ideas are different then the Left’s they are targets for these kind of stories. And again, Carson and Fiorina are targets because the Left views blacks and women to be the property of the Left’s political plantation.
There is a long way still to go in this campaign. Would it help if Dr. Carson had a more precise language in reference to his apparent encouragement to go to West Point? Yes. But the fury of the onslaught, the effort to depict him as telling a deliberate lie was so over the top that even Politico felt compelled to retract their headline after a mere five hours.
Is it good that Carly Fiorina was re-invited on The View for another, second, skirmish? A skirmish where she in typically classy fashion won the day? Yes. But why did this have to occur in the first place?
And is it a very good thing that Saturday Night Live and NBC didn’t buckle to the Latino leftists and their typical race card playing? Absolutely. Free speech lives at SNL. But the fact of the petition and the race-baiting kids commercial that stirred this dust-up is a testimony to just how race-centric the Democratic Party and the American Left really are - and in fact have always been.
So three conservative media victories in the span of a 48-hour period. A good thing. But the real problem here is that conservatives should have to endure these kind of stories in the first place. With a primary field that includes Carson and Fiorina, plus the two Hispanic US Senators Cruz and Rubio - and with Trump’s passionate beliefs on illegal immigration - one can be certain this is not going to be the last time these types of incidents will surface.
It’s too bad. But it does say everything one needs to know about the Left’s real world view. None of it good.
