Ben Carson's West Point Story Fabricated Says Ben Carson.

[maxparrish]

The idea that it was impossible for Carson to have gotten an informal offer of an opportunity for full scholarship is totally daffy.

The unsupported smear fails; and the counter-factuals religate the smear to the LOL file.

Except that wasn't what Carson said. He didn't say he was given the "opportunity" for a full scholarship, he said he WAS offered a full scholarship. Those are two different things.

To you they are two different things because YOU would choose different words. But as I have pointed out, to him the assurances or promises were that given his record, he could a military career at West Point with a full scholarship. As the recruiting posters of the era promised a full scholarship, and that blacks were heavily recruited, apparently that is how recruiters or authorities promised "full scholarships" as inducements.

Given 25 years later, someone wishes to to quibble about what he could mean in a sentence, that he has since clarified, what's the point? It's taken 25 years for some nit-picker to spot it and start wailing that (regardless of how recruiters put it) you don't get scholarships, you get admission with scholarships. So it took him another 10 minutes to clarify it.

Yet the wailing continues over the specifics that the critics can't show to be wrong (other than the date of a conversation).

I know most here have a deeply sunk mental block on these kinds of issues. So I will try to simply it by example of my actual experience:

ME: "In 1969, I recall meeting Wendy Green of X big city, and then later I was offered a big salary. I turned it down because it would complicate my pursuit of other opportunities for management. I knew that was not the direction I wanted to go".

IDIOT PARTISAN: "NO...YOU ARE A LIAR. YOU CANT JUST GET A BIG SALARY, YOU HAVE TO HAVE A JOB AND YOU NEVER EVEN APPLIED. IT IS IMPOSSIBLE, THAT IS NOT THE WAY CITY EMPLOYMENT WORKS. YOU CONCEDED YOU NEVER APPLIED. ITS ANOTHER LIE IN YOUR LIFE STORY."

ME: It was an informal offer from her department. They (city recruiters) that if I wanted a big salary they would facilitate my hiring to one of the still unfilled consultant slots. They saw my resume and assured me that if I went forward, I'd get it with BIG BUCKS.

IDIOT PARTISAN: "LIAR. YOU SAID YOU TALKED TO THEM IN MARCH OF 1969 BUT IT MUST HAVE BEEN IN JANUARY OF 1969...THIS PROVES YOU ARE A LIAR". THERE IS NO SUCH THINK AS AN INFORMAL OFFER".

ME: "There is such a thing as an informal offer, I just described it.

IDIOT PARTISAN: "LIAR. THERE IS A DIFFERENCE. SO YOU WERE LYING"...etc. etc. etc.

This is an example of the idiot criticism of Ben Carson, about a single comment - one that was merely intended to show he had other opportunities and chose a different path.

The whole "controversy" is a grain of sand made into the Himalayas.

 

[Alias2]

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[Tom Sawyer]

View attachment 4697'm

I don't think it would be good to have a President who demonstrates that much contempt for the common man. Someone had to rewind that video tape for him. Perhaps even a single mother.

 

[Alcoholic Actuary]

Except the part where he was 'offered' anything, which he wasn't. Just because I've heard of Harvard or talked to someone who went there doesn't mean I get to tell everyone "I turned down an offer" to go there. It is equivocation and lacks integrity - something Mr. Carson could have learned about at West Point had he actually gone.

1) He wasn't an impoverished 17 year old when he wrote the books, or recounted the story several times. In fact he still hasn't clarified anything. His campaign manager who knows probably next to nothing about the scenario is the one trying to salvage his image among his faithful believers.

2) He wasn't a "shoe in" if he couldn't figure out how to apply or what an offer even means and based on his categorical lying, he wouldn't have lasted 2 weeks. Cadets are routinely bounced out of the academy for lying.

He wasn't offered anything (by anyone)?

Nope. There is nothing for anyone to offer except motherfucking instructions on how to motherfucking apply.

Be reminded that this entire so-called "controversy" emanates from a story in the Politico by Cheney. Cheney disputes the date at which Carson and Westmoreland conversed, that Carson must have mixed up the dates of a similar dinner-banquet . THAT's IT! Cheney provides no contrary evidence to other aspects of Carson's account; he does he dispute that Carson was introduced to Westmoreland at a dinner-banquet to which both were invited, that Carson conversed with him, or that at a later date "an offer" from some WP connected officers happened. NONE.

Right, that's the lie propagated in 2 books and multiple accounts - that there was some "offer of full scholarship". Politico didn't make that part up. Ben Carson did.

... He didn't lie about the offer, at worst he used the phrase "full scholarship" to embellish a description of the offer to get him into free West Point, based on his exceptional merits.

Yes. And it is a lie. He didn't get anything from anyone at anytime suggesting that he could even so much as "get in" to West Point. It is a gross mischaracterization of what West Point is and how it works. At best, a recruiter may have told him he would be a good candidate for the admissions process. That is nowhere close to an offer of a full scholarship and even 17 year olds would know the difference (assuming they were good candidates for West Point admissions).

Once more you make an accusation of "lie" without evidence. Telling us "at best" what any particular WP connected or commanding officer may have offered (or Carson took as an informal offer) requires you to prove that he could not have considered a number of scenarios as an offer, and were impossible but you've provided nothing.

All this evidentiary impoverished anti-Carson table pounding is over a single sentence, and the meaning and unknown details behind the recollection of "Later...an offer of full scholarship to West Point". Posters are twisted in knots over arguing with THEIR speculated meanings, not his HIS meaning of "offer" and "full scholarship". So he and his campaign clarifies and gives his best recollection, and all we get are empty accusations of "liar" and unsupported claims of "impossible".

What IS impossible is to make a case that Carson lied. And after I looked at new evidence it is now impossible to claim he egregiously embellished by calling it "full scholarship".

It is equivocation. It is a lie. Again, he might have learned about this had he actually gone. I'll assume there were no honor classes where you went school either.

In the 1970s and 1980s, as Hewitt reported, it was fairly common for recruiters to promise full scholarships to ROTC students.

Not to West Pointers, they didn't. No recruiter has authority to offer admission to West Point.

In fact, the "term" was commonly used in WP recruitment posters. See for yourself:

The "Only person you need to know is yourself" says plainly in the boxed area that men and women can take of the opportunity to attend West Point on a full scholarship (and it explains all the benefits of that scholarship).

And here is the original ad and text from another ad, saying the same thing:

When you accept admission to a service academy your time spent could be considered a government scholarship, but such is not "offered" to anyone in any manner such that they could turn it down. Unless you actually believe that just by reading this propaganda pamphlet, you too were offered a full scholarship. Maybe a dimwitted 17 year-old might consider it that, but by the time you reach book-writing age you will know the difference. You've avoided addressing this slippery fact time and again, max. Why is that?

And, by the way, this WP image and the full article link is from the 'massive national recruitment campaign' directed to black Americans in the latter half of the 1960s:

https://books.google.com/books?id=Q...ment scholarships&pg=PA73#v=onepage&q&f=false

That doesn't say anywhere that "scholarships were offered". It says quite clearly "Candidates must be American citizens who are at least 17 but under 22 as of July 1 of the year they are enrolled". Candidates for admission - not offers.

The idea that it was impossible for Carson to have gotten an informal offer of an opportunity for full scholarship is totally daffy.

The idea that he received any offer, informal or otherwise, without even applying is totally daffy.

The unsupported smear fails; and the counter-factuals religate the smear to the LOL file.

Front runners in the presidential race always face rigorous scrutiny and seldom come out clean, but Carson's time in the spotlight has to take some kind of record for fantastical atrocity. You're right about the LOL file, but not how you mean it.

aa

 

[credoconsolans]

Except that wasn't what Carson said. He didn't say he was given the "opportunity" for a full scholarship, he said he WAS offered a full scholarship. Those are two different things.

To you they are two different things because YOU would choose different words.

No, they have different meanings to EVERYone. This is what reading comprehension is. Taking what someone said and understanding his meaning by his word usage and context.

He said he was offered a full scholarship:
e.g. "Hey Carson, here is your full scholarship. All you have to do is sign on the dotted line."

Carson says he declined to take it.

That is COMPLETELY different from:

Being offered the OPPORTUNITY for a scholarship.

e.g. "Hey Carson, I'm really impressed with you. I think others would be too. Here, you might want to look into scholarships that are offered by West Point."

Nothing is being offered to him but the opportunity to TRY for a scholarship. He doesn't have to 'turn down' anything because he has NOTHING tangible.

The difference is pretty clear and straightforward.

 

[bilby]

Let's say I have a kid that plays football and the assistant coach comes and talks to him and says "we really want you to come play for us at State, let us hook you up with a scholarship". Later the kid decides he wants to be a doctor and doesn't apply to state.

Is the kid a liar if he says "I was offered a football scholarship at State"?

Yes. And your example perfectly outlines the difference. The words "Lets hook you up with a scholarship" constitute an offer which can be accepted, declined, or countered. No one did that to Carson, not imaginary Westmoreland from the tennis courts of DC, not anyone remotely affiliated with USMA or the military in general. I find it extremely difficult to believe that this wunderkind of ROTC had difficulty figuring out the admissions process to the most famous and highly regarded institution of higher military education in the world.

aa

When was Carson offered a place at Sandhurst?

 

[Alcoholic Actuary]

Yes. And your example perfectly outlines the difference. The words "Lets hook you up with a scholarship" constitute an offer which can be accepted, declined, or countered. No one did that to Carson, not imaginary Westmoreland from the tennis courts of DC, not anyone remotely affiliated with USMA or the military in general. I find it extremely difficult to believe that this wunderkind of ROTC had difficulty figuring out the admissions process to the most famous and highly regarded institution of higher military education in the world.

aa

When was Carson offered a place at Sandhurst?

Nice.

http://www.onlinecollege.org/10-most-prestigious-military-academies-in-the-world/

aa

 

[Shadowy Man]

Had this been the only questionable thing about Carson's past, it probably would not have been a big story. The issue is that it seems to be part of a larger predilection for embellishing and/or misrepresenting his past. For a regular person, this is still not a big deal, but for someone who makes money selling books with these stories and then later runs for President using these stories as representative of the strength of character he believes qualifies him for the Presidency it is a much bigger deal.

 

[ronburgundy]

To be fair, when I was 17 and made a brief contemplation of a military academy (not that they would have taken me, probably), the fact that there was no "tuition" that I had to come up with sounded an awful lot like a "scholarship" to me. Of course, over the next 30 years, I learned the difference. Maybe carson just never thought about it again after that teenage point in time.

Plausible, since most his ideas are infantile and he clearly has not given any thought to most things about reality since becoming and adult.

 

[maxparrish]

To you they are two different things because YOU would choose different words.

No, they have different meanings to EVERYone. This is what reading comprehension is. Taking what someone said and understanding his meaning by his word usage and context.

He said he was offered a full scholarship:

e.g. "Hey Carson, here is your full scholarship. All you have to do is sign on the dotted line."

Carson says he declined to take it.

That is COMPLETELY different from:

Being offered the OPPORTUNITY for a scholarship.

I was hoping my example of being offered a big salary would shake off your (and AA's) context-free glassy eyed absolutism. As you dodged my heuristic device, it has not been a curative. However, I think we can attain the same ends:

In 1992 Ben Carson, Director of Pediatric Neurosurgery at John Hopkins, wrote his first book, his memoirs. In 224 pages he gave his life story (up to that point). As a part of that story, he wrote about the choices he faced as a stellar ROTC officer with excellent grades and, like in much of his story, with no money - including the inducements from several colleges. In one sentence he wrote:

"Later I was offered a full scholarship to West Point. I didn’t refuse the scholarship outright, but I let them know that a military career wasn’t where I saw myself going."

Now let us assume that was not exactly true; that a more accurate sentence would have been "I was offered, by WP contacts, facilitation and help into WP with a full scholarship". Should we really care?

It was an innocuous sentence, one that passed unnoticed in book reviews and the comment and incident was so unimportant it was not in Cuba Goodings Gifted Hands movie. It was trivial in its core message - Ben Carson passed by an offer (or offer of facilitation) to get a free education at West Point intentionally. Before Ben Carson decided to run for President, not even the most hyper-pedantic and micro-carping reviewer would put a #600 sieve to the book looking for tiny flecks of disharmony that amounts to a single fleck in a ton of ore material.

And if this were a sane world, a sharp-eyed curious reader might quizzically ask at a book reading, "how so" over a passage? Like authors do, they often answer. "Oh that means X or Y". And the world goes on.

But this is not a sane world, and twenty plus years pass and the fellow runs for President; fevered partisans begin panning for those flecks, running their sluice boxes, pans, and sieves 7 days a week, not to ask "How so", but to find a fleck, a fleck that they use to scream LIAR (not "oh I now see what was behind the comment").

And because the pre-determined point is to prove that Carson is a loathsome individual, and immoral bounder, Carson's intended meaning and clarifications are irrelevant. He couldn't have made a mistake, failed to explain more, or simply forgotten a modifier, nope, in a 224 page book he intended to pull a major scam in his life story. Right?

"THERE IT IS" the breathless partisan screams, he wrote "offered a full scholarship" when it should have written "offered facilitation into West Point with its full scholarship".

WOW...what a STORY! A pulitzer prize winner there.

Nothing is being offered to him but the opportunity to TRY for a scholarship. He doesn't have to 'turn down' anything because he has NOTHING tangible.

The difference is pretty clear and straightforward.

Incorrect. As I have reminded others:

First, no one knows what was offered to him in private conservations with those recruiters or persons in authority. AA is fond of making unsubstantiated declarations that there was no offer because...well...because AA says so.

Second, Carson has clarified what was offered. WP connected individuals of authority wanted him to go to WP and offered to facilitate his entry into West Point with its full scholarship. The encouraged him to accept their help because they believed that with his record and grades they could easily get him in.

Therefore, they offered more than a mere opportunity to apply and try.

 

[Don2 (Don1 Revised)]

Well, max, some of it's true and some of it isn't. The stuff that isn't true, some of that is pretty inconsequential. Some of it was being dramatic for religious effect, making up stories that evangelicals would believe. Carson might have been half-lying to others and half-lying to himself there. You know lying about getting $10 bills from god. Actually, given how much $10 was worth back then, he probably should have reported the money to a police department or asked around instead of lying to himself that god gave it to him.

It's not like Carson has been honest about other things either, like Obamacare being worse than slavery or allusions to Nazis. Like most of the serious GOP contenders, he's a bit of a drama queen.

It is interesting that you're calling this "partisan" though. The conservative, corporate media is reporting the stories and that all happened after Carson started leading Trump in the GOP primary polling. Not to mention some on the left are not into it, like Bernie Sanders, for example. In any case, it's most likely the Trump campaign who did research on the book and then informed the various conservative media outlets about the questionable stories.

 

[maxparrish]

Well, max, some of it's true and some of it isn't. The stuff that isn't true, some of that is pretty inconsequential. Some of it was being dramatic for religious effect, making up stories that evangelicals would believe. Carson might have been half-lying to others and half-lying to himself there. You know lying about getting $10 bills from god. Actually, given how much $10 was worth back then, he probably should have reported the money to a police department or asked around instead of lying to himself that god gave it to him.

It's not like Carson has been honest about other things either, like Obamacare being worse than slavery or allusions to Nazis. Like most of the serious GOP contenders, he's a bit of a drama queen.

It is interesting that you're calling this "partisan" though. The conservative, corporate media is reporting the stories and that all happened after Carson started leading Trump in the GOP primary polling. Not to mention some on the left are not into it, like Bernie Sanders, for example. In any case, it's most likely the Trump campaign who did research on the book and then informed the various conservative media outlets about the questionable stories.

Don2, yes some of it kinda...sorta...a smidgen less than absolutely true, and even that is inconsequential. Carson's fastidiousness for honesty is probably more than that of most, or perhaps any, candidate in decades. But rather than noting how little of his background is in serious dispute compared to others (e.g. Hillary, Trump, etc.) the press has gone bonkers looking to turn a fleck into a mountain range.

Yet, as the Columbia Journalism Review has noted, the ethical standards of the press on this one is in the toilet. As the Dan Rather - Mary Mapes debacle should have taught them, you can't make a story of proving the negative and fishing for a confirming bias. Worse yet, you can't do it by freelancing speculation.

Among the 'sensational' expose' stories by the reckless MSM press that have imploded:

- The West Point kerfuffle
- The stabbing incident
- The hiding of two students.
- The test hoax

The only story of half truth is the Mannatech story.

NOW if you want to know what a SERIOUS background issue and alleged acts of prevarication consists of in a memoir, you look at stuff more serious than whether or not he found 10 dollars. For example, the many issues raised regarding Kerry:

- The claim that a Silver Star with a V for valor listed that the Navy stated it had never awarded in the history of the US Navy, three separate medal citations with some heavy revisions in Kerry's favor signed by former Navy Secretary John Lehman who denied ever signing them, to name two.

- Message traffic with experts that show when the Swift Boat Vets charged that Kerry had written the Bay Hap after action report, by which he received his bronze star and the third purple heart that was his ticket out of Vietnam, the evidence showed that it was indeed probably written by Kerry himself.

- The charges by Admiral Roy Hoffman, head of the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, but also in command of all the Swift Boat operations in Vietnam, directly under Admiral Elmo Zumwalt who claims Kerry is lied about his tasking for insertions of special operations troops across borders by sea, whether Seals, CIA, Army Special Forces or Vietnamese troops. Hoffman stated he was never asked to handle missions for the CIA. "They had their own teams for that. And none of my Coastal Commands ever inserted any troops of this kind into Cambodia.

Kerry's direct commander at An Thoi, George Elliott, has denied ever being asked to run such a mission out of his base and three of Kerry's PCF 44 crewmen have denied ever being in Cambodia with Kerry. Peck said " "There never was one. And I never saw a Navy Seal at An Thoi the whole time I served there with Kerry"

- The question of whether or not Kerry actually through his own medals back, as he claimed, or if it were another's.

- Numerous questions over his reports, medals and "wounding", as well as conduct.

Mind you, I am not saying that these allegations were true. BUT at least they have the merit of being based on the questioning of his "major accomplishments" in war, and lots of confirming research and witness statements.

If someone finds out his transcripts and GPA were forged, his medical degree never issued, his business practices were corrupt, or his medical accomplishments were propaganda then journalists are pursuing the important. Till then, the issues are fluff.

 

[Alcoholic Actuary]

"Later I was offered a full scholarship to West Point. I didn’t refuse the scholarship outright, but I let them know that a military career wasn’t where I saw myself going."

Now let us assume that was not exactly true; that a more accurate sentence would have been "I was offered, by WP contacts, facilitation and help into WP with a full scholarship". Should we really care?

I can understand why you wouldn't care. After all, honor and integrity mean different things to different people. But it's obvious I care. It is equivocation and similar (mis)statements would have gotten him kicked out of West Point for honor violations. The consequences are slightly different when human lives are at stake, which is also why it's relevant that he's asking to become the President of the US. When average Joe Douchebag tells me he was "offered a full scholarship to West Point, but declined", I rarely consider more than the pathetic nature of the creature speaking and give it no further thought. But lying about who you are and where you are from and opportunities offered is still offensive and I wouldn't hire them to mow my lawn much less lead real soldiers into and out of combat.

And because the pre-determined point is to prove that Carson is a loathsome individual, and immoral bounder, Carson's intended meaning and clarifications are irrelevant. He couldn't have made a mistake, failed to explain more, or simply forgotten a modifier, nope, in a 224 page book he intended to pull a major scam in his life story. Right?

Actually no. Despite your adamant defense of this individual you have failed miserably with regard to looking specifically at the actual statements made and contrasting them with reality. It couldn't possibly be more obvious that Carson intended to mislead and deceive readers into believing he could have easily attended West Point but had some other calling. Nothing could be further from the truth. He intentionally made it sound as though the option to be a doctor or military officer was nothing more formal than a coin flip. The 'unfortunate choice of language' is a great disservice to anyone who actually applied and was turned down. Or do you not make the distinction between those who applied to USMA and were rejected, vs. those who say they were offered a full scholarship but declined?

Incorrect. As I have reminded others:

First, no one knows what was offered to him in private conservations with those recruiters or persons in authority. AA is fond of making unsubstantiated declarations that there was no offer because...well...because AA says so.

Second, Carson has clarified what was offered. WP connected individuals of authority wanted him to go to WP and offered to facilitate his entry into West Point with its full scholarship. The encouraged him to accept their help because they believed that with his record and grades they could easily get him in.

Therefore, they offered more than a mere opportunity to apply and try.

Yes, and these are lies. I was an Honor Representative and West Point graduate, "an officer with West Point connections", frequently worked with the admissions office, and went on recruiting trips while at West Point and in the Army. I know exactly what can and cannot be offered to a prospective candidate. Given Carson's track record of truthfulness I have no doubt that he is intentionally misleading his readers on his opportunities to attend West Point. No one offered him anything that he couldn't read in a pamphlet. That in no way constitutes some kind of "offer" of a "Full Scholarship".

Or perhaps you were there or have some kind of experience or credentials that invalidates mine. Your backbreaking gymnastic defense of this liar suggests that you are more attuned to the political party speaking than the actual message. I hesitate to accuse you of being better, but you ought to be.

aa

 

[funinspace]

Carson - Your toast is ready...

Imaginary violent childhood, bizarre pyramid claim, and now a West Point Big Fib. Trump is already tweeting out that Carson is a crackpot.

Trump tweet from: http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box...9358-carson-cnn-thinks-im-a-pathological-liar

With Ben Carson wanting to hit his mother on head with a hammer, stabb a friend and Pyramids built for grain storage - don't people get it?

Oh, and a hint: never suggest, even when putting the words into someone else's mouth, that you are a pathological liar.

Let the cauldron simmer for a week or so, and Carson's poll numbers will most likely start crashing...another one bites the dust.

With a month of rapidly sinking poll numbers, the true Carson campaign implosion has probably just started, with 2 top aids quitting:
http://www.nytimes.com/politics/first-draft/2015/12/31/top-ben-carson-aides-quit-amid-campaign-turmoil/

Fresh upheaval engulfed Ben Carson’s troubled presidential campaign on New Year’s Eve as his campaign manager and spokesman both resigned abruptly.

The resignations of Barry Bennett, the campaign manager, and Doug Watts, his spokesman, come as Mr. Carson had been sliding in polls amid questions about his grasp of foreign policy and scrutiny of his own biographical narrative.

“Barry Bennett and I have resigned from the Carson campaign effective immediately,” Mr. Watts said in an email.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Yeah, this was hardly a surprise. Even evangelicals found him a bit creepy.

 

[funinspace]

Yeah, this was hardly a surprise. Even evangelicals found him a bit creepy.

Bite your tongue...one of my evangelical in-laws liked him in her Facebook pages; though we find this in-law family kind of creepy too...

 

[Don2 (Don1 Revised)]

The only thing that made sense about him was Black Jesus.

 

[Shadowy Man]

It was always pretty clear to me that the same people who flipped out when we got the first black President were not going to elect the second.

 

[arkirk]

It was always pretty clear to me that the same people who flipped out when we got the first black President were not going to elect the second.

Seriously, if the guy were to leave a tool inside your head and then say, "Aw shucks! I didn't like that person anyway. Now when he disagrees with me and shakes his head, there will be something in there to rattle around." Would it be a surprise? This guy was one of the most pathetic offerings as a candidate I have seen in quite awhile. Only Trump is worse. That might be why he is stepping aside.