Dr. Ben Carson's stomach-turning remark that the VA scandal is a "gift from God" to show us the ills of ObamaCare shocked and outraged our readers so much that he ran away with our Outrageous Quote of the Week poll last week. I'm not sure we've ever had such a decisive win before.
To refresh your memory, what Carson said was:
I think what’s happening with the veterans is a gift from God to show us what happens when you take layers and layers of bureaucracy and place them between the patients and the health care provider.
Carson won 143, or 61%, of the 233 total votes cast. His nearest competitor was Bill O'Reilly with 28 votes - for referring to Marco Rubio's skepticisim about man-made global warming as "bold and fresh."
You can view the full poll and its results here. Stay tuned for another Outrageous Quote of the Week poll tomorrow night.
The ironic aspect to these displays is that as they strive to out-crazy each other, they become less and less electable by those that have the final say – middle of the road, non-extreme America.
I would love to see the Democratic Party take on the Republicans as a whole in a national campaign rather than scatter the effort across hundreds of individual races for House and Senate. Imagine a 60 second ad made up of the craziest of crazy things various R-Souls have uttered and not been rebuked for, then asking the question: “Reckless people like these have taken over the once-proud Republican Party. Can you imagine the chaos if they managed to get unbridled power?”
Dr. Carson is pointing fingers at the problem in hope of improving his creds as a candidate for the next presidential run (yes, please!). Mary’s link suggests that she belongs to his electoral staff, probably as a volunteer at this early stage. I respect her a lot for not trying to pose as a disinterested outsider. While I don’t share her appreciation of Dr. Carson, she’s not a troll.
Carson’s supporters often refer to his status as a world-class neurosurgeon as justification for believing what he says. In reality, success in one field cannot be taken automatically to qualify anyone as a reputable source (aka opinion leader) in other fields. That’s the whole point of “specialisation”. One of the finest legal minds I’ve ever encountered in America is happy to swallow every mis-fact heard on FNC. To the dismay of family and friends, his deadly ability to deconstruct silliness and prevarication is put on hold as soon as he turns on that channel.
While the American education system is capable of producing the finest specialists in the world, it does precious little to develop basic skills in critical thinking. This means that some of them, like Dr. Carson and my lawyer friend, are ignorant as hell on matters outside their field. The American system does not give the pre-university grounding in philosophy, critical thinking, civics and history that Europeans get. The latter is no guarantee, of course, because we have our own champions of wilful ignorance in the name of political ambition.
Btw, nice job of simply waving away the mention of actual facts that prove how the previous administration also let the VA fiasco of “waiting lists” and lack of funds evolve into a systematic mess. Pffft.
I strongly agree that something needs to be done about the VA, and I also agree that we ALL need to cross party lines to take care of those that put their lives on the line for OUR country.
But unfortunately, Mary, Ben Carson and the Republicans a far more interested in pinning for anything they can on Obama than they are in the suffering of vets. If you don’t believe that, come back here and we’ll all be glad to supply you with links that prove that claim. Ben is NOT the answer. Nor is God. We need to do something about this outrage ourselves.
Though those reforms failed overall, thanks to opposition from certain groups (their name rhymes with “GOP”), what success they did enjoy was mysteriously stripped under Bush, which is more than likely a factor in why situations like Walter Reed showed up on his watch. Fancy that.
Oh, and if we’re gonna try blaming it on Obamacare, let’s review: According to the timeline, the administrative and financial decisions that created the Phoenix VA had allegedly been going on for years, possibly even going far enough back to have begun around the time Walter Reed was discovered, when they finally reached the House of Representatives, who in turn had been sitting on it, while cutting VA benefits since 2012.
You wanna know my solution? Don’t let the GOP have a say in the issue anymore. Their solution is to just sit on things, while actively contributing to making it worse. And throwing buzzwords like “Tyrant” and “Socialism” as a slur towards anyone who calls them out. Even doing nothing beats their idea for a cure.
Or the conservative outrage when it was known (as shown in VA Inspector General Reports) that these despicable, falsified VA “waiting lists” existed at least as far back as 2005?! Why wasn’t something done about it back then (as needs to happen now)? It took FOX “news” waaaay too long to start covering the Walter Reed fiasco and, here they are once again, refusing to also call out/hold BushCo responsible for their part in the VA scandal.
Instead we are treated to a bunch of GOP/FOX “news” hypocrites who seem incapable of pointing fingers at anyone other than the Obama Admin. And, pitifully, we have the likes of BOR hating on Pelosi for pointing out an inconvenient truth – that measures should have been taken to get the VA in better shape and better funded back when BushCo started his 2 multi-year wars. How dare she point out that there are “ramifications” from these wars such as thousands of vets who came home needing the services of the VA.
We are all outraged over how some of our vets have been treated (or, more accurately, how they have NOT been treated). But the way the right-wing is acting (especially when they haven’t had the same regard for the vets when they had the opportunity to do so in the past) and some of the things they are saying (like Carson’s inappropriate “blessing” remark) are over-the-top.
I’ve noticed that when a post about Carson comes up, the “run, Ben, run” contingent makes an appearance. LOL! Guess they can’t be too happy with the news that Ted Cruz won the GOP straw poll in Louisiana last night edging out Carson. Looks like Carson just isn’t crazy enough for the Louisiana GOPers. Bwaaah!
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2014/05/veterans-affairs-backlogs-waiting-lists-george-bush
http://mediamatters.org/blog/2014/05/21/when-fox-news-shrugged-over-a-veterans-care-sca/199406
Yes, PUULLLLLEEEEAAAASSSE run, Ben.
Crazy GOP blacks and Hispanics have worked out so well for the GOP!
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
By the way, ’Mary"….where was your outrage about the Walter Reed scandal?
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/02/17/AR2007021701172.html
Oh, wait….that was in 2007.