2- Ben Carson for President

Editorial in the Orange County Register, Thurs. Feb. 21, 2012

Prayer Breakfast Hypocrisy

Doctor chided for doing what Obama did.

Since he had the audacity to invoke God at the National Prayer Breakfast in criticizing policies held by the President of  the United States, seated beside him at the head table, Dr. Benjamin Carson has been lambasted by critics largely on the left, but also on the right.

How dare he use an apolitical platform to advance political and social views, critics complain. How dare he be so impertinent to invoke God as the motive to advance views that conflict with the president's, they protest.

But Dr. Carson, a renowned John Hopkins University neurosurgeon, expected the criticism. "It's not my intention to offend anyone," Dr. Carson said at the top of his speech. "I have discovered however, in recent years, that it is very difficult to speak to a large group of people these days and not offend someone." The doctors critics make his case.

Illinois Democratic Rep. Jan Schakowsky rumbled on CNN's "State of Union" that, "I think it's ... not really an appropriate place to make this kind of political speech and to invoke God as [Carson's] support for that kind of view."

 

Memories are short and selective. two years ago at the same venue, the National Prayer  Breakfast, none other than President Obama said, "[I]t is my faith, then, that biblical injunction to serve the least of these, that  keeps me going and that  keeps me from being overwhelmed.  

 

The context for the president invoking the Bible is found in his immediately preceding words: "What I can do to try to improve the economy or to curb foreclosures or help deal with the healthcare system."

 

Where was the protest about the President using the apolitical platform to invoke God to advance his political and social views, some of which surely were not shared by everyone in the audience?

 

The hypocrisy goes to the heart of Dr. Carson's message, so eloquently delivered at the prayer breakfast Feb.  7, videos of which have gone viral on the Internet.

 

If Dr. Carson is guilty of mixing religion and politics, so, too, was the president. Critics' double standard underscores the problem the neurosurgeon described.

 

When Dr. Carson made the case that it would be more beneficial to allow individuals to establish health savings accounts with pretax dollars than for the government to take tax money and dictate medical choices, he not only was making a moral case, he was speaking of a realm, health care, in which his expertise arguably exceeds the president's.

 

"The [politically correct] police are out in force at all times,"Dr. Carson said from the platform. " People focus ... on that and completely miss the point of what you are saying. And we've reached the point where people are afraid to actually talk about what the want to say because somebody might be offended."

 

In that same speech, he summed up the situation best when he told listeners: "What we need to do in this PC world is to forget about unanimity of speech and unanimity of thought, and we need to concentrate on being respectful to those people with whom we disagree." Good advice.

 

George H. Kubeck, Cinops Be Gone - Sunday, Feb. 24, 2013