Ben Carson not equipped for Oval Office

Right wing radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh told Chris Wallace of Fox News GOP presidential candidate Dr. Ben Carson was not “equipped” to be president. “One of the finest men. I’ve met him, and the things that he’s done, places he’s come from, he’s just one of the most decent human beings.”

When pressed by Wallace, Limbaugh said, “Ben Carson equipped to be president? Um — probably not at this stage.”

Limbaugh seems to buy all of Carson’s unsubstantiated back story; the alleged violent years, hitting his mother with a hammer, stabbing a kid in the belt buckle, telling a would-be robber to stick up the counter person at a Popeye’s, well, here’s Carson’s account: “I have had a gun held on me when I was in a Popeyes organization. Guy comes in, put the gun in my ribs. And I just said, ‘I believe that you want the guy behind the counter.’ ”

The Baltimore Police Department had no record of a reported armed robbery at a “Popeye’s organization” in the time frame(s) the Carson campaign claims it happened. Carson said the event wasn’t a big deal and that he couldn’t remember if he put it in a book or not (he’s written three).

The spinning and constantly changing narrative by Carson and his spokesmodel Armstrong Williams just made it laughably worse for the candidate until the campaign said it would no longer speak on the subject. At one point Williams said Carson wrote about it in the book, Take the Risk. That proved to be wrong. But that wasn’t even the worst of it for Dr. Carson.

Throughout his campaign Carson has been woefully ignorant about foreign affairs. When asked which countries he would call to for a coalition to fight ISIL, Carson couldn’t think of any, and that was on Fox News. He falsely asserted China had intervened militarily in Syria. He doubled down on that claim when reporters pressed him on it.

Then one of his senior foreign policy advisors, retired CIA agent Duane R. Clarridge told the New York Times, “Nobody has been able to sit down with him and have him get one iota of intelligent information about the Middle East.” Clarridge added they needed to sit down with him every week to “make him smart” when it came to foreign policy.

Since the Paris attacks of November 13, Dr. Carson has been slipping in the polls, while the bombastic Donald Trump has been surging. The Donald has said he would “bomb the shit” out of ISIL, and then send in Exxon to rebuild. “I would just bomb those suckers, and that’s right, I’d blow up the pipes, I’d blow up the refineries, I’d blow up ever single inch, there would be nothing left. And you know what, you’ll get Exxon to come in there, and in two months — you ever see these guys? How good they are, the great oil companies, they’ll rebuild it brand new … And I”ll take the oil.”

Trump’s supporters, which is at least 25 percent of the GOP base, love that kind of violent rhetoric, even if every serious Middle East analyst will tell you it’s pure fantasy.

Trump has also taken on protestors at his events, encouraging the private security to be violent with protestors. He told Fox News a Black Lives Matter protestor at an event on Saturday was “so obnoxious and so loud” that, “Maybe he should have been roughed up, because it was absolutely disgusting what he was doing,”

In the video from the event, the crowd broke into an uproarious cheer when Trump said, “Get him the hell out of here, will you, please? Get him out of here. Throw him out!”

CNN video shows the protestor, Mercurio Southall, Jr., being kicked and punched when he fell to the floor and one man tried to choke Southall.

Recently Trump claimed he saw news footage showing thousands of Muslims in Jersey City, New Jersey dancing and celebrating on September 11, 2001, when the World Trade Center was destroyed. No such footage exists or ever existed; law enforcement in the area confirm that it never happened, but Trump is sticking to his story about it. Jersey City was, in fact, a place people that were injured in the attacks were ferried to for initial treatment, because of it’s proximity to Lower Manhattan.

There were Muslims celebrating around the world to be sure, most people remember Palestinians celebrating, but there weren’t any such celebrations in Jersey City or any other city in America.

Back to Rush Limbaugh: when Chris Wallace asked Limbaugh his opinion of Trump, he replied, “Donald Trump is, I think, doing a great service. He is showing that you do not have to fear attacks from the media. Republicans do not have to fear from attacks from the media. He’s showing you do not have to fear being politically correct or violating political correctness.”

Limbaugh also gave high praise to Texas Senator Ted Cruz and questioned former Florida Governor Jeb Bush’s commitment for the job, something he’s done from the moment Bush announced he was exploring a presidential campaign.

We have to wonder how much influence Limbaugh still has on the GOP base. Carson’s star is falling anyway and Trump’s is back on the rise. If that trend continues it’s a good bet Limbaugh will claim credit for leading the GOP voters, for being the GOP kingmaker. The Republican establishment might not care to have Limbaugh leading the party either, even if it just appears that way. Most Americans dislike Limbaugh, plus he’s taken on the establishment of the GOP since the rise of the Tea Party movement.

Rush Limbaugh, just when you thought he was irrelevant.