The Real Ben Carson Issue
Most of the commentary you’re seeing about Ben Carson these days relates to whether it’s fair for his campaign to expect the national press to shoehorn his Zondervan-published stories—really originally designed to make him a tidy second income—into their national narratives.
And this has only recently outpaced leftish disbelief about the outrageous positions he takes. I have a friend who insists that Carson actually believes everything he says. I’m not so sure.
But the farther back I stand, the easier it seems to see a particular historic pattern which now extends to Carson.
When folks talk about the Oath of Office taken by the newly-elected President, on Inauguration Day, they’re usually referring whether the President agrees to abide by constitutional lets and hindrances to their power. But, by now, we should be seeing a whole other implication of that Oath.
The Oath of Office should furthermore commit that executive officer to actually do the job they were elected to do. Note how this differs from simply swearing to act within the constraints of the Constitution. To me, simply promising to know those constraints on one’s power, then rolling up the sleeves and getting down to the hard work of governing a decent republic, are both needed to mark a strong President.
In my own time, I’ve seen strong Presidents and weak, lazy Presidents.
Furthermore, I’ve seen a trend as relates to the lazy ones. Carson in particular is a would-be exemplary extrapolation of that trend.
The three data points I have in mind are: Reagan, Bush Jr., and (would-be) Carson.
There are two commonalities with these folks; one growing in stridency, the other plodding along, ever-ready to seize the opportunity to fill a weak executive’s power void.
The first commonality is the rise of the evangelical vote, and its ever-growing willingness to impute a bogus “strength” to the in-group affiliation of its target candidate. The divorced, historically pro-abortion Reagan’s stumbling, inarticulate religious creds were laughable to discerning folks, but were at the same time “good enough for rock’n’roll” for many evangelical voters—including the newly fledged pro-life set—and provided a tidy little electoral edge where none wasn’t actually needed.
Bush Jr., on the other hand, sorely needed his edge. In spite of his cleaner, stronger, up-front evangelical gloss, the electoral edge thus obtained wasn’t even enough to quite win him the popular vote.
And, by now, we all know Carson’s pitch: On the stump, the man can’t roll out the evangelical tropes and shibboleths fast enough. To discerning ears, the mere rate of deployment should be enough to cast aspersions on his sincerity. The Zondervan-published tripe that passes for his life story is gospel for folks who don’t read their Bibles yet believe every word of it is literally true. Those same folks resent the media, right along with Carson, when reporters balk at being expected to shoehorn those Zondervan nostrums into their press reports, as though those strings of heart-warming, honey-glazed vignettes were, themselves, gospel.
But I haven’t gotten to the second commonality; the most important one.
The real issue is the fact that weak Presidents attract and host parasitical, anti-republican advisors, and delegate their duty to forge otherwise solid, life-affirming, republican policy to these dishonest and adventitious others.
With Reagan, the most prominent of these were associated with the Iran-Contra machinations, which were plainly and outrageously treasonous.
With Bush Jr., that most prominent “old face” came bundled right alongside him: Cheney. Elliot Abrams, the hoary old Iran-Contra ghost, found a roost in that “administration”, along with Wolfowitz, Feith, and the host of PNAC jackals, elated to climax no doubt that their wet dreams of access were about to come to raging, flaming life. And all this wound up spelling something well-nigh to doom for the American Experiment.
And this brings us to Carson.
The media recently reported on one of Carson’s foreign policy advisors back-channeling news of Ben’s seeming inability to retain and integrate key foreign policy information. I suppose we can be thankful for a small miracle; that this guy would be forthcoming regarding Carson’s shortcomings as a geopolitical strategic thinker.
But... who was that guy? That “advisor”? It was none other than erstwhile CIA spook, pardoned Iran-Contra conspirator, and Central American theatre covert go-to guy, Duane Clarridge.
So, we have our harbinger of doom, on the off-chance that Carson wins the nomination, then possibly goes on to successfully leverage an electoral edge on the “strength” of his evangelical bona fides.
I suppose we can all pray that there are a few actual republicans left in the Republican Party establishment, and that they’re not about to stand idly by and let their Party be host to a replay of the Bush debacle, cranked up to 11. That they’ll weigh the benefits of controlling the White House against the costs of a weak Presidency and decide to let the U.S.A. survive for another decade.
But… Nah! That’s too much to hope for.
Raise consciousness about this aspect of that which Carson represents.
Note that I’m not asking folks to single out Carson, though he is the latest instantiation of this lingering enervating drain on the republic. Indeed, Carson would be an almost unprecedentedly (Harding?) weak President, but the point is this willingness by a politically activated part of the electorate, the evangelicals, to impute strength to an inherently weak person by dint of an in-group affiliative claim.
But don’t focus on Carson. Focus on the idea that a good President takes two Oaths at the Capitol Building: One to abide by the Constitution, and Another to DO THE FUCKING JOB.
