I don't have to open my eyes. Just listen to me.
We’ve spent several months now wondering how Donald Trump would respond if his poll numbers started to slump. We finally found out Thursday when Ben Carson surged past him by eight points in Iowa in Quinnipiac’s
latest poll.
Trump’s first response?
His second?
Oops! No, I would never suggest that Iowans are suffering from brain damage—an intern just thought it was funny. Classy! Trump ultimately deleted the tweet.
Ben Carson also surpassed Trump in Bloomberg's Iowa poll and in Wisconsin at 20 percent, with Donald Trump and Marco Rubio tied for second at 18 percent. Many Republican voters are, in fact, swooning over the soft-spoken former neurosurgeon, who, at least in temperament, seems eminently more reasonable than his blowhard rival, Trump. Here’s a little glimpse of the Carson fervor from NPR’s Sam Sanders interviewing an attendee at one of Carson’s recent book tour events.
KATHY YOSTEN: I love that man. He's wonderful. He's calm. He's intelligent. I see a goodness in his eyes. He makes me feel safe.
SANDERS: You're tearing up right now. He means a lot to you.
YOSTEN: Yes, he does.
When you’re listening to it, you can hear Yosten choking up just a bit with gratefulness for Carson.
Seems like as good a time as any to revisit all the ways Ben Carson has demonstrated he’s totally off his rocker. Head below the fold for five jaw-dropping Carson classics.
5. The Ben Carson playbook on handling mass shootings
After suggesting that the victims of Umpqua’s mass shooting took bullets like lemmings because they just stood there, Carson revealed his own heroism when faced with a heat-packing individual who stuck a gun into his ribs. Here’s his, “Hey, shoot the other guy,” account:
"Guy comes in, put the gun in my ribs, and I just said, 'I believe that you want the guy behind the counter,'" Carson said on Sirius XM Radio on Wednesday. "I redirected him."
4. More guns in Germany could have squelched the Holocaust
Carson’s got plenty more sage advice on guns. On a
CNN appearance earlier this month, he informed Wolf Blitzer of why our Second Amendment rights are so important.
“I think the likelihood of Hitler being able to accomplish his goals would have been greatly diminished if the people had been armed,” Carson said.
3. Obamacare is just like slavery
The former neurosurgeon also isn’t all that excited about all the once-uninsured Americans who now have the peace of mind of being able to get treatment if they fall ill. Carson may have
said this in 2013—before it was clear how wildly successful Obamacare would be—but it gives us a sense of the opaque vision for the country he could bring to the Oval Office.
"You know Obamacare is really I think the worst thing that has happened in this nation since slavery," Carson, who is African American, said Friday in remarks at the Values Voter Summit in Washington. "And it is in a way, it is slavery in a way, because it is making all of us subservient to the government, and it was never about health care. It was about control."
2. No Muslims for president cuz the Constitution
This should really disqualify Carson immediately since the Constitution
expressly states: “no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office” in the United States. But Carson is obviously
reading a different text—no clue which one.
In an interview with NBC for broadcast on Sunday morning, the retired neurosurgeon said: “I would not advocate that we put a Muslim in charge of this nation. I absolutely would not agree with that.”[…]
Carson was asked: “So do you believe that Islam is consistent with the constitution?”
“No,” he said, “I don’t, I do not.”
1. Being gay is “absolutely” a choice—prison proves it
No point in a set up
here.
During the interview Wednesday morning, when Carson was asked by [CNN’s] Chris Cuomo whether being gay is a choice, he replied: "Absolutely."
"Because a lot of people who go into prison go into prison straight -- and when they come out, they're gay. So, did something happen while they were in there? Ask yourself that question," Carson said.
Oh, yes, let’s ponder that for a moment. K. Moving on.
Ben Carson specializes in the type of twisted, often victim-blaming, logic that the GOP base just can’t get enough of lately. And apparently he does it in a way that makes people feel “safe.” When that soothing voice washes over you, who cares what he's actually saying? It just feels right.
The only thing that’s more frightening than Carson’s dismal intellect gaining mainstream relevance is the fact that Marco Rubio, who is rising in the polls, might actually be able to shoot the gap to become the nominee if the GOP's Bozos fizzle out. (With apologies to Bozo, of course.)