“What *I* think is a big deal is how many Freepers swallowed the Politico hit/smear-job so readily — not only swallowed it, but ran *hard* with it.”
It was a WELL-SOURCED story. Carson said, MANY TIMES, that he was offered a scholarship at West Point, but West Point keeps good records and could not find anything dealing with him. Are we supposed to IGNORE stuff like this? If that’s the case, why even have this website?
“To me, it speaks more to the utter lack of faith they have in their preferred candidate than their faux-outrage over anything Carson may or may not have done decades ago.”
Actually October, 2015 was not that many “decades ago”. Carson continued to claim that he was offered a scholarship to West Point, at least when interviewed by Charlie Rose last month. You’d think by now he would have figured out that never happened.
“I’m not a fan of Carson as President - nice guy, gifted doc - but I really don’t give a hoot what a liberal rag like Politico has to say about *any* candidate whether good, bad or indifferent. I automatically presume it’s leftist spin.”
Actually what’s in Politico’s interest, right now, is keeping Carson on life support - as otherwise Trump WILL BE the nominee. Cruz doesn’t seem capable of catching him. Carla and Bush have collapsed, and people are running out of room to forgive Rubio for the crap in his past.
“If there’s anything to be learned from this, I would hope the political right will start exercising a bit more discernment on MSM reports about any candidate. They can only be relied upon and trusted to spin positive about dems and spin negative about gop.”
Unfortunately, for Republicans, some of the MSM reports are actually VALID. I think dismissing a report on its face because it may make a Republican look bad is a MUCH WORSE thing to do. Again, if the report is well researched, well sourced, and not denied by the candidate - I’m going to believe it. Not even Reagan could hold a candle to God - our candidates are human.
“We should all be *solidly* unified and aligned against the leftist MSM propaganda machine in all regards, whether it involves our pet candidate or a candidate we hate. If we can’t even agree on that, I don’t know what we could ever agree on.”
I agree that we should give our candidates the benefit of the doubt considering how much the media HATES us, but we also should NOT give our people a free pass. For example, if the New York Times reports that 100 witnesses saw Ted Cruz murder someone in cold blood, and the Times is able to name those people, and none of those people dispute the accuracy of the report - then I’m going to be hard-pressed to believe otherwise, regardless of what I think of the NY Times.
“...For example, if the New York Times reports that 100 witnesses saw Ted Cruz murder someone in cold blood...”
Seriously? This guy Carson has now committed a sin as grave as *murder*? Is this the straw you are now grasping at?
The USMA advertised at the time (and may still today) in ads & marketing literature that attendance was described as a full scholarship. There have been posts of USMA ads and articles describing attendance with the exact phrase, “full scholarship” included in the text (google it - politico now wishes they had). There should be no confusion anymore as to how the USMA markets and presents academy attendance to prospective students who may or may not have a formal offer. The USMA also does not keep track of offers not made or applications not received, so they should not be expected to prove this ridiculous issue one way or the other.
I have no interest in defending Carson - he can handle himself however he sees fit. But here’s my point: I don’t give a flip about what Carson may or may not have done 50 years ago -or- last month because it is none of my concern. I know who I am planning to vote for in the primary and it isn’t Carson or Trump. Why should I waste any time and energy on Carson, Trump or any other candidate than the one I plan to vote for? Why should you?
Is your preferred candidate so weak that you need to piggy-back on an obvious liberal rag’s smear-job to try and advance your candidate by denigrating another? Is your preferred candidate so unremarkable that you feel the need to expend your time & energy to keep perpetuating what has now been shown to be a clear and unrepentant fabrication by some liberal rag — a liberal rag that has previously been caught publishing fabrications? You would *still* place stock in Politico in hopes you can somehow salvage the poorly considered leap you made onto their bandwagon?
You’re beating a dead horse. I care more that Politico has been shown yet again to be a publisher of lies. That Carson and others have now shown he did NOT lie as Politico claimed he did is good for him I guess, but I’m less concerned with his campaigns health.
If someone publishes that Trump, Carson or Rubio killed some babies in front of a hundred witnesses, I’ll consider the article as Enquirer grade UFO-ology. I surely won’t place much faith in said article until it is separately sourced. The Politico hit-job spawned a bunch of articles about the Politico article — no-one reported a seperate (and I am hesitant to use this word) “journalistic” investigation. So you have a gazillion articles about the Politico’s single article with no corroborating report. That should have been your clue not to get too fired up about it. Murdered babies or not.