The farther along we get in this presidential election, the more it becomes apparent that Republican candidate Dr. Ben Carson is in over his head. It's his own fault. He had a perfectly respectable fundraising career as That Religious Conservative Guy Who Once Said Slightly Rude Things At President Obama, but somehow convinced himself to bump himself up from the conservative speech circuit to actual presidential candidate. And as his Sunday CNN interview demonstrates,
the results are an incoherent mess.
Exhibit 1: Dr. Ben Carson thinks the government should defund Planned Parenthood. He's upset his fellow Republicans are not defunding Planned Parenthood. And how would he go about defunding Planned Parenthood, given the plain reality that the current sitting president would veto any such attempt? The answer, it appears, is that you just have to believe.
TAPPER: [... D]o you think that it's worth shutting down the government over?
CARSON: I think it's worth looking at all the alternatives that we have. Throughout my medical career, icon constantly had people saying, well, this is the way it has to be done. This is the way it's always been done. This can't be done. I don't listen to that stuff. I think there is a way to get it done. [...]
TAPPER: What is the way?
CARSON: I don't know what the way is. But you know if I were in there, I would be talking with everybody I knew, familiarizing myself with every possible legal aspect, and there is -- where there's a will, there's a way.
Gibberish, then. Not only no actual idea on how to accomplish this thing Dr. Ben Carson feels so strongly about, but not even the hint that he's spent a bare hour or two "familiarizing" himself or "talking with" anyone in order to come up with one.
Exhibit 2: Dr. Ben Carson runs himself off the rails on The Muslim Menace, yet again, and continues to run himself off the rails repeatedly and with prejudice until finally his campaign manager declares the interview over.
Head below the fold for more Carson hijinks.
TAPPER: You said last week, quote, "I would not advocate that we put a Muslim in charge of this nation. I absolutely would not agree with that."
CARSON: I would advocate that people go back and look at the transcript.
[Begin video clip showing Dr. Ben Carson saying exactly that, because These Fucking Things Are Recorded These Days]
All right, so we've established that Dr. Ben Carson in fact did say exactly what Dr. Ben Carson said despite his noble attempt to Fiorina himself out of the situation. Fear not, though: Dr. Ben Carson is not a bigot. Dr. Ben Carson just believes the tenets of Islam are incompatible with being a good American.
CARSON: I would have problems with somebody who embraced all the doctrines associated with Islam. If they're not willing to reject, you know, sharia and all the portions of it that are talked about in the Koran, if they're not willing to reject that and subject that to American values and the Constitution, then of course I wouldn't. [...]
Because American people, the majority of them, agree -- and they understand exactly what I'm saying.
TAPPER: I think I've seen -- I've heard from a lot of people who don't think that Muslims can be patriotic who agree with you. And I don't know that if I were running for president I would want the support of people like that.
CARSON: Of course Muslims can be patriotic. I have a -- I've worked with Muslims, I've trained Muslims, I've operated on Muslims. I know a lot of Muslims who are very patriotic, good Americans. And they gladly admit at least privately that they don't accept sharia or the doctrines and they understand that Islam is a system of living and it includes the way that you relate to the government, and you cannot, unless you specifically deny that portion of Islam, be a Muslim in good standing.
And it just kept going.
TAPPER: You're assuming that Muslim-Americans put their religion ahead of the country.
CARSON: I'm assuming that if you accept all the tenets of Islam that you would have a very difficult time abiding under the Constitution of the United States.
At which point the interview was over, because mean Jake Tapper just kept on insisting on asking Dr. Ben Carson to explain his views on Islam and it was making everyone very cranky.
All right, so we've once again established two things about Ben Carson. One, that even though he's been preparing a presidential run for, at this point, years, he still has a bear of a time muddling through even the most rudimentary questions about how he might accomplish any of the things he has crafted a career on opining on—his knowledge of the specifics of government never seems to elevate itself beyond the fuzzy space between rudimentary and aspirational.
And two, he's quite happy to tell the Republican base what they want to hear, on Muslims and sharia and why being a Christian is not only just better, but why being not-Christian is antithetical to being a true American. Telling the base that hard-right religious conservatism is the only true religion is, after all, why Ben Carson has a conservative lecture career today. He's Mike Huckabee with sleepy eyes and an infinitely less grating persona.
Combine both those things, however, and you've got the recipe for one hell of an eventual flameout. Won't that be fun.