My head is spinning over the past day or two regarding revelations about Dr. Ben Carson’s alleged, purported, supposed misstatements about whether he got a scholarship offer to West Point.
It’s turning into a game of semantics.
Moreover, the arguments have turned the discussion into a mud bath, meaning it’s becoming “clear as mud” about what Carson — a leading Republican presidential candidate — wrote about himself and whether it comports to the truth about what actually happened and when it supposedly occurred.
Steve Kornacki is a smart young political analyst who’s a regular on MSBNC’s talk-show circuit. He hosts a weekend talk show on MSNBC called “Up with Steve Kornacki.”
I’m beginning to believe that Kornacki might have the right take on how this Carson imbroglio is going end up. He said the other night on “Hardball,” another MSNBC show, that Carson and his allies have managed to turn the tables on the so-called “liberal mainstream media,” and have turned the argument into a game of “gotcha” in which the “liberal press” is “out to get” the good doctor.
Thus, if I read Kornacki’s analysis correctly, they’ve built enough reasonable doubt over the original story published by Politico that they’ve managed to deflect the argument back to the messenger … the aforementioned “liberal mainstream media.”
To be plainly honest, the story has taken so many turns I’m having trouble keeping up with it all. I need to stay focused entirely on the saga — chapter by chapter — to make sense of it all.
I guess I’ve boiled it down to simply this point: Dr. Carson could have written any reference to West Point with much more clarity than he apparently has done so far.
Or … he could have just not mentioned West Point at all.
I suppose another presidential candidate, Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont — who’s seeking the Democratic nomination — had the best take on it all: Maybe we ought turn our focus more on Dr. Carson’s peculiar current public policy views and less on what he has said about his past.
