The Washington Post recently interviewed Ben Carson — presumably only to exploit this, our exceptional season of GOP performance art — and, up to a point, the interview is a fascinating read. I give you, for instance, this brief exchange:
[WaPo]: It seems that six or eight weeks ago, your message broke through in a big way. You vaulted to the top of the polls, and people responded to that. Since then, it’s gone down. What do you think happened?
Carson: Unfortunately, Paris happened. San Bernardino happened. Somehow the narrative has been projected that if you’re soft-spoken and mild-mannered, there is no way you can deal with terrorism, with national security, that you’re not a strong person. That’s the narrative that is out there.
Carson's lack of self-awareness and concomitant inability to identify cause and effect are nothing less than astounding. He plummeted in the polls because his policy acuity is that of Donald Trump's without the personality. (Insert emphatic punctuation here.) Carson has to know this, or so I am tempted to think. Yet, having followed his oddball political career for several months now, my actual thinking is somewhat different — that Carson, most likely, believes his every word: He plummeted in the polls because of an unfair, media-driven "narrative."
The poor man is utterly untethered from himself.
Straightaway in the WaPo interview, Carson confirmed my diagnosis by comparing himself to Abraham Lincoln. Then, in all seriousness he added: "In terms of [my] missteps, I think that people simply can’t sometimes understand what I’m talking about."
No, Ben, we get it. Really, we do. And we feel so damned sorry for you.