Ben Carson, former brain surgeon and the number two candidate in the GOP presidential race, appears to be suffering from a case of “The Emperor’s New Clothes.” Recently some very candid interviews with some of Carson’s U.S. foreign policy advisors surfaced, painting a very troubling picture.
Jonathan Chait of NYMag said this:
“The candidate’s advisers are saying on the record he doesn’t know anything, has trouble learning anything, and cannot seem to recall even what little information he has managed to assimilate. I don’t see how a Carson presidency could go wrong.”
According to the New York Times, top advisers told the paper:
“Ben Carson’s remarks on foreign policy have repeatedly raised questions about his grasp of the subject, but never more seriously than in the past week, when he wrongly asserted that China had intervened militarily in Syria and then failed, on national television, to name the countries he would call on to form a coalition to fight the Islamic State.”
“Faced with increasing scrutiny about whether Mr. Carson — who leads in some Republican presidential polls — was capable of leading American foreign policy, two of his top advisers said… that he had struggled to master the intricacies of the Middle East and national security and that intense tutoring was having little effect.”
Finally Duane R. Clarridge, a top adviser to Mr. Carson on terrorism and nationals security said on the record with the New York Times:
“Nobody has been able to sit down with him and have him get one iota of intelligent information about the Middle East.” He also said Mr. Carson needed weekly conference calls briefing him on foreign policy so “we can make him smart.”
The most troubling thing about this story is that Carson probably knows much more about U.S. foreign policy than Donald Trump, who’s almost guaranteed to win the nomination.
