Ben Carson’s defenders rallied late this afternoon, focusing in on whether Carson “fabricated” a story about his admission to West Point or simply told a story that was demonstrably false numerous times over several decades. But Carson seemed to dig himself deeper in an angry exchange with reporters this evening. This snippet from the conservative Washington Examiner, captures the moment …
“Politico, as you know, told a bald-faced lie,” Carson said. “I never said I received a full scholarship. Nowhere did I say that.”
A member of the media interjected: “You just told me you got scholarship offer.”
“I never said I got a scholarship,” Carson replied, making a distinction between “scholarship” and “scholarship offer.”
The Examiner then notes that in October Carson told Charlie Rose: “I was offered a full scholarship to West Point, got to meet General Westmoreland, go to Congressional Medal dinners, but decided really my pathway would be medicine.” In other words, Carson now seems to be hanging his hat on whether he got a “scholarship” or a “scholarship offer.” Obviously, he got neither, since West Point offers no scholarships since there’s no tuition. And he never got an offer of anything, since he never went through the fairly lengthy nomination/admissions process.
Carson then went off on a tirade about President Obama’s allegedly secret college records and attacked the media for ignoring this Obama scandal.
“All the things that Jeremiah Wright was saying, eh, no problem,” Carson said, pillorying the media. “Goes to Occidental College, doesn’t do all that well, and somehow ends up at Columbia … His records are sealed,” Carson said. “Why are you guys not interested in why his records are sealed?”
