On Friday, a report in Politico questioned Carson’s assertion in his autobiography, “Gifted Hands”, that he had been “offered a full scholarship to West Point”. The first is that instead of describing a meeting with General Westmoreland, Carson carefully said “I had the opportunity to meet General Westmoreland”, a potentially significant shift.
Advertisement
On Friday, Carson’s campaign said he never sought admission to West Point, and Carson himself angrily denied suggestions that he had misrepresented the facts surrounding the West Point overture. “There’s no room for us to be, the media won’t allow us to be, human”, Evans said. “It has a feel of, ‘Gotcha”. Scrutiny to determine the truth about would-be presidents is a good thing.
“Welcome to politics”, he said.
Even with questions surrounding Carson’s past, Trump recognized that the retired neurosurgeon was his biggest rival for the Republican presidential nomination. And who knows how many more things in Carson’s book will turn out not to be true.
One of the tactics that is used by you guys in the media, particularly when someone is doing very well, is ‘let’s find a way to get them distracted, and get all the people distracted so that we can get away from the real issues’. “Utahns value good character and humility”.
Carson took a moment to clarify reports he lied about being offered a scholarship at West Point when he was seventeen-years-old.
But Trump also implied that Carson’s story about attempting to stab someone in his youth – only to have his knife broken when he hit a large belt buckle – was hard to believe. “That’s important for Utah voters”.
None of the above means that Carson is a fabulist or that he shouldn’t be president.
According to Politico, Theresa Brinkerhoff, a spokeswoman for the academy, said West Point has no records that indicate Carson even started the process of applying.
You know, when you write a book with a co-writer and you say that there was a class, a lot of times they’ll put a number or something on it just to give it more meat.
The Wall Street Journal challenged coursework Carson says he took at Yale University, and said it could not corroborate claims he sheltered white students during a riot over Martin Luther King’s assassination while he was in high school.
Carson told NBC on Sunday none of the students interviewed had been those offered sanctuary. He said, “there is a desperation on behalf of a few to try to find a way to tarnish me”.
Advertisement
Carson said he’s under scrutiny “because I’m a threat to the secular progressive movement in this country”. “It’s a odd situation, though, when you talk about hitting your mother in the head with a hammer and hitting your friend in the face with a padlock, when you talk about stabbing somebody but the [belt buckle] saved them”, Mr. Trump said. “I never expected him to be ideal”. I don’t think so. He said he could not recall specifically who made the offer, but he pushed back against the idea that he should be able to do so.
