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Ben Carson Isn't Backing Down

Posted: Sunday, November 08, 2015 at 10:10 AM EST - Item ID: 499

Ben Carson has a message for the liberal media: I'm not backing down. In an interview with Mark Levin Friday, Carson responded to a recent hit piece by Politico, saying he expected such character-assassination tactics from the Left, but he won't let them deter him from his goal of becoming America's next president. They're hoping that I'll get discouraged and will say it's just not worth it, but believe me, it is worth it because our country is worth saving. The lives and the quality of lives of our children is definitely worth saving. It's worth fighting this battle. I knew this would happen. There was no question in my mind because they would look through my life and they wouldn't be able to find a scandal so they would start picking at everything. I'm sure they're looking for my kindergarten teacher to see if I ever wet my pants. But I'm going to keep pushing forward. It's just not going to work.

On Friday, Kyle Cheney of Politico reported that Carson had lied about getting a full scholarship to West Point and that his campaign admitted he had fabricated the story in his 1990 memoir, "Gifted Hands." The exclusive report had the potential of bringing down the GOP's national frontrunner, and media outletsâ€both conservative and liberalâ€ran with the story. There was only one problem: the Politico story was a lie. When they were called out on it by the Carson campaign and responsible journalists, they cleaned up parts of the article and changed their headline from "EXCLUSIVE: Ben Carson admits fabricating West Point scholarship" to "Exclusive: Carson claimed West Point â€˜Scholarship' but never applied."

According to the original Politico article, "Ben Carson's campaign on Friday admitted, in a response to an inquiry from POLITICO, that a central point in his inspirational personal story was fabricated: his application and acceptance into the U.S. Military Academy at West Point." The Carson campaign, however, never admitted anything of the sort. Carson never applied to West Point and therefore was never accepted, but was, as he told Charlie Rose last month, "offered a full scholarship at West Point, got to meet General Westmoreland and go to Congressional Medal of dinners, but decided really my pathway would be medicine." Carson said he met with recruiters at the time, and they told him he'd get into West Point and wouldn't have to pay for his college education. West Point is free to all who are acceptedâ€in essence, it's a full scholarship, language even West Point uses in marketing pieces. Despite the promises of acceptance and a full scholarship, Carson declined the offer because he wanted to become a doctor and didn't want to serve in the military, which is required after attending West Point. Carson, instead, went to Yale and then attended the University of Michigan Medical School. His hard work and dedication led him to be one of the top pediatric neurosurgeons in the country, becoming director of pediatric neurosurgery at Johns Hopkins and performing nearly 15,000 surgeries. Despite his success and years of earning public trust, the liberal media are using the same old tactics of character assassination to knock him out of the race as they've used against conservative candidates in the past. But Carson says their "silly" games aren't going to work with him. "The fact that they're putting all this heat on me will actually work to my advantage," Carson told Levin, "because now I will be able to say let's talk about what's going in Hillary's life with the same intensity and see what they say." Carson made this point when he faced a hostile press on Friday, saying he predicted that the press piling on would actually help him because his supporters see this as a "witch hunt," aimed only at conservatives while Democrats are treated with kid gloves.

"I don't remember this level of scrutiny for one Barack Obama when he was running," Carson said. "In fact, I remember just the opposite." Carson went on to reference Obama's relationship with Bill Ayers, Bernardine Dohrn, and Jeremiah Wright. He asked the media about Obama's college transcripts and why they're not interested in getting them unsealed. "Will someone please tell me why you have not investigated that?" he challenged the press. "I want to know"

Of course the press didn't want to answer, but Carson remained strong: "What you're not going to find with me is somebody who is going to sit back and let you be completely unfair without letting the American people know what's going on."

This is the kind of leadership and fighting spirit many on the Right have been longing for as a hostile liberal press has attacked its candidates and politicians for years. For too long, the GOP has remained silent. For too long, people have stood by and let the press rip into conservative candidates with Alinksy's tactics of demonization and ridicule. Now, they've had enough, and Carson and others are pushing back.

"The constant message I hear from people is please don't give into the media, please don't get discouraged, please don't take any of it seriously and keep fighting for us," Carson told Levin. "It's almost like we're setting up an us-versus-them scenario in the country, and I see a movement building here."

There is a new movement. It's called the conservative insurgency, and it's demanding changeâ€new leaders, new media, and a renewed love for America as the greatest country in the world. Leaders like Carson see it as worth saving, not only for ourselves but for our children. This is why Carson is in the race, and he's not giving up. He's pressing forward unbent and unbroken.

I spent my entire life being a pediatric neurosurgeon trying to give kids longevity and quality of life, and I was looking forward to retirement. But I began to really think about what quality of life will they have if we continue down this path of destruction, of tearing our country apart with the purveyors of hatred, creating a war on everything, of having such incredible fiscal irresponsibility that we give them no chance at a quality existence, of not preparing ourselves when we have global jihadists who want to destroy us, of not taking care of our electric grid, of letting our military deteriorate. I just said, no. The patient is in critical condition, and we've got to find a way to do this. The pundits and the political class say, no, no, no, no, only we can solve these problems, but our country was designed for citizen-statesmen. It's designed for each one of to take an active role at whatever capacity. We must be educated, we must be informed, and we must be brave, recognizing that those who preceded us gave everything so that we could have a chance. And now it is our turn to see what we're willing to do for the next generation. The liberal press surely has more up its sleeve, but it looks like Carson is ready to take them on. If they think they've scared him, think again. He has a goal, and if his supporters have learned anything from his life story of rising from poverty to become of the greatest doctors in our nation's history, they can trust he won't give up.

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