Carson's Real Scandal is His Ignorance

Ruth Marcus on Nov 15, 2015

OK then.

This is not Debate 101 answer-the-question-you-wish-you-were-asked obfuscation. It is a candidate without command of the subject matter. Nor is it an isolated flub.

Asked whether he supported President Obama's move to send Special Operations forces to Syria and leave 10,000 troops in Afghanistan, Carson's answer careened around like a crazed pinball, bouncing between wrong facts ("You know, the Chinese are there [in Syria]") and unenlightening platitudes ("Putting the Special Ops people in there is better than not having them there, because ... that's why they're called Special Ops.")

Previous debates were much the same. Asked about vaccines and autism, Carson defaulted to denouncing "big government" for taking "so much of our taxes." Asked whether he would have used military force against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad for using chemical weapons, Carson bemoaned cuts to the military, concluding, "I would shore up our military first, because if you don't get the military right, nothing else is going to work."

Asked about subsidies for oil and ethanol, Carson went back to overregulation and that bar of soap. Asked about pharmaceutical companies hiking drug prices, Carson came up with, "The government is not supposed to be in every part of our lives, and that is what is causing the problem."

I welcome a campaign that features candidates with whom I disagree; debating such differences is the essence of democracy.

A campaign with candidates so ill-informed could be its undoing.

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Ruth Marcus' email address is ruthmarcus@washpost.com.