And again, the media obsesses on irrelevant details to try to destroy a candidate they don't like.

Well, any candidate they don't like with an (R) behind their name.

They don't seem to be interested in tracking down the Marine Recruiter who allegedly told Hillary that she was too old, her eyesight was too bad, and besides, she was a woman, so the Corps wouldn't be interested. . .

Forget whether the media are unfair. That isn't the question here.

There are 2 questions here.
Is this guys self aggrandizing lying in itself a disqualification? Tall Tales from college are less important to me than, has he done well as an adult?
And...
Is there a single candidate that could stand up to the scrutiny?

If Boya had half a brain, he would throw out his full college transcripts, and say: "lets talk facts, and not concentrate on books I wrote to be entertaining."

Automatically puts aside the concentration on the book, as the current prez 'composited' all of his books... and current prez has refused to release his transcripts, but contends he is the smartest guy in the room.

Carson may implode, but I think he's got some pizs poor advisers.

Much less offensive than Hillary and the incoming gunfire story.

Another vote for meh Amy.

On it's own you have three choices.
1. Carson misremembered something from 30 years ago. Meh.
2. Carson got tricked 30 years ago. Again meh and the point of the story still holds.
3. Carson lied about the whole thing. Disappointing and stupid if true. Has Carson been pushing this story? I haven't paid attention enough no know.

In comparison to others: Obama's biographies were complete works of fiction. Hillary lies about everything all the time.

In the end I'm not even bothered they published this. It feeds right into the biased media narrative and makes Carson look like a threat to the democrats. So in the end this may help Carson rather than hurting him.

We all know this; but, I say it anyway:

If only the media had spent half the effort in looking into Obama's college past as it has with Carson, Trump, etc. We might never have elected Obama.

I file this into the meh category as well. Everyone lies and embellishes stories about their past in my experience. I get that lying attests to character, but his lying (if true), does not distinguish him from the others who have lied about things as well.

Personally, I found the "grain storage" account a greater indictment than this stupid story.

Compared to Ronald Reagan, this tall-tale makes Carson look like a saint.

The Politico hit piece on Carson has fallen apart.

http://money.cnn.com/2015/11/06/media/ben-carson-politico-west-point/

Come on. The guy's a dingbat.

If only the media had spent half the effort in looking into Obama's college past as it has with Carson, Trump, etc. We might never have elected Obama.

Dude, come on. Obama's not the face in my locket, but his background was as thoroughly vetted as that of any politician of recent years.

This just sounds like a dumb tall tale, one that would get repeated as "inspirational" glurge on Facebook or whatever. I don't think it should somehow disqualify Carson for holding office.

This endless bellicose whining about the media (or mainstream media or lamestream media or whatever) is tired, tired, tired. Isn't this what the media are supposed to do -- check and either verify or debunk claims?

Media whine always tells me more about the whiner than it does about the truth — it tells me that the whiner isn't interested in ferreting out the truth about a person or situation, but only wants information that fits his or her own confirmation bias.

Ben Carson has shown himself to be dishonest. When running for president there is going to be scrutiny from the press. This has nothing to do with his political affiliation as a Republican. This scrutiny has to do with judging integrity and ascertaining if a candidate is accountable or able to handle this type of pressure.

For those who say that other candidates are not held to a similar standard...try again. This is not exceptional, nor is it unreasonable.

If this is the best that Republicans have to offer: The Donald and Ben Carson, then they have only themselves to blame. Dr. Carson belongs in the OR. Beyond that he is out of his realm and he exposes his own shortcomings.

Dr. Carson belongs in the OR. Beyond that he is out of his realm and he exposes his own shortcomings. ~ Posted by: Eric Silverman at November 8, 2015 6:55 PM

Ben Carson has no experience running an enterprise. He was head of pediatric neurosurgery at Johns Hopkins. His job was running a department, not the entire enterprise. Medical skill was prized over administrative skills. Afterward, he sat on the board of a few organizations, overseeing the CEO, not making and implementing strategy. He is woefully unprepared for a job like the presidency.

Trump has issues that should preclude him from becoming president, but at least "The Donald" has run an enterprise and stood in command of the ship.

The Democrats offer only one candidate, Hillary Clinton; candidate who has never run a serious enterprise and whose sole political qualification is that that she was the wife of a successful Democratic president.

Hillary has never been a governor, a CEO, or held any job wherein the buck stopped with her. Even as a US Senator, she was inconsequential, never sponsoring or even co-sponsoring major legislation.

Hillary's stint as managing partner at the Rose Law Firm was due to her husband being the state's Attorney General and later, its Governor. She was a figurehead and political rainmaker, not an administrator.

As Secretary of State, she was admittedly hamstrung by Obama's refusal to use his Cabinet secretaries as advisors and department heads. Even without that, a Cabinet secretary's job is carry out strategy and advise the president in developing strategy, not to devise the strategy himself.

Within what she was allowed to do, her stint as Secretary of State was disastrous. The chaos in Syria and Libya can be traced directly back to her (her own actions or her advice to the president). Her refusal to admit what really happened with Benghazi has shown her be a liar and her gleeful trumpeting of the arrest of a filmmaker whom she knew to be innocent of causing the attack at Benghazi should convince anyone not already in the bag for her that she cannot be trusted as the guardian of our civil liberties.

Her probable running mate, Bernard Sanders, was the mayor of Burlington, Vermont for eight years and, by that alone, better qualified to be president than she is. By this account in The Boston Globe, he was a fiscally conservative, pragmatic, and reasonable mayor. And a kook - but mayors can be kooks and still get the job done. By way of example, Jerry Brown was actually a pretty good mayor of Oakland, before he termed out, drank the Sacramento kook-aid, and took the bullet train back to Crazy Town.

https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2015/10/31/socialist-even-conservative-could-love-burlington-mayor-sanders-was-able-out-republican-republicans/SCmh2TLifXxXRPFKC8NMjO/story.html

With his pro-hunting stance on guns, Bernie stands no chance to be nominated by the modern Democrat Party. It's Hillary's nomination to lose. If Hillary is the best the Democrats can offer, they have only themselves to blame.

If only the media had spent half the effort in looking into Obama's college past as it has with Carson, Trump, etc. We might never have elected Obama. ~ Posted by: charles at November 8, 2015 1:43 PM

Like a good lawyer, the media do not ask questions to which they don't want the answers.

Obama's Columbia years remain a black hole in his autobiography and media package. In fact, Fox News contacted 400 of his classmates and none remembered him. Professors don't remember him either. And he won't release his Columbia transcripts.

http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB122108881386721289

It's possible he went there and made no serious impression on anyone. I doubt many of my classmates or professors from my undergraduate years would remember me. But I'm not president.

It's the work of an instant to find several Columbia students who remember Obama, including a roommate who has photographs of the time. POLITICO also has a PDF of Obama's writing for the student newsweekly.

The "Fox 400" was referenced in the WSJ without a link to the supposed Fox News story. All other references to it I've seen link back to the WSJ, which makes me think the Fox News story doesn't exist.

Like a good lawyer, the media do not ask questions to which they don't want the answers.

This sounds tremendously impressive. Unfortunately, a few words later you link to a WSJ editorial that does just that. This is not unusual. Often people shriek "Why is the media covering up THIS?" -- and then link to a mainstream media article to "prove" it's being covered up.

What is undeniable is that Obama's work at Columbia has never been produced. I assume he was a terrible student. Some think there must be something in his writings there that was seditionist or unbefitting a U.S. president. I don't know; all I know is that the work has not been produced.

Do you have a link to the original Fox News story about the 400 classmate interviews? I'd like to read it.

Anyone consider that like most (x) turned politicians he didnt actually write the book?

20 bucks says he spents a few week telling a ghost writer a few stories and never read the book before it went to press or after

referenced in the WSJ without a link to the supposed story.

Got a link to the Politico .pdf? 'cause I googled "Obama time at Columbia" and got only links to people not remembering him - except one link for a roommate describing Obama as a loner, aloof, and devising his plan to become president while at Columbia.

luj, he says he wrote it, but a linguist analyzed it and deduced that Bill Ayers wrote it - based on word and phrase selection and comparing it to Obama's Law Review submission.

Subsequent books are closer to Obama's phrase construction and show more signs Obama wrote them.

"Dude, come on. Obama's not the face in my locket, but his background was as thoroughly vetted as that of any politician of recent years."

I saw Peter Jennings, on election night, say, "What do we really know of this man?"

Major news anchor doesn't know. Doesn't sound very "vetted" to me.

Ben Carson, somewhat of a hypocrite?

Ben Carson claims evolution presented by Satan?

I guess this means on election day we'll be stuck with choosing which candidate we think is bullshitting us the least. Just like every other election for the past 200-plus years. There's nothing new under the sun.

If there was an honest candidate then Carson, and every other current contender, would be history. But so far the stuff they have on him is pretty mild.

There's still plenty time to find more. And as with every other candidate so far, I bet there's still plenty more to find.

If only the media had spent half the effort in looking into Obama's college past as it has with Carson, Trump, etc. We might never have elected Obama.

Asinine. The media is not obligated to vet anyone. They can vet or not vet as they please. There's no law or duty, implied or otherwise, that requires the media to vet candidates for office.

The job of vetting belongs to the opposing party, since they obviously have more of a stake in the outcome of the elections. If you don't feel Obama was properly vetted, you need to point your accusing finger at the Republicans, not the media.

As for the claim that no one remembers Obama at Columbia, in a word, bullshit.

"There's no law or duty, implied or otherwise, that requires the media to vet candidates for office."

But they do have a duty to be journalists. And that is a big part of why news papers and many TV news channels are dying. No one can sanely claim the media aren't biased. The recent presidential debates displayed that pretty blatantly. Dan Rather is still pushing his 'False but True' story. And fact checking is clearly a beautiful Orwellian euphemism for opinion piece. So many of these organizations are pushing a political angle so hard they've moved from news organization to propaganda outlets.

Which in the end hits them in the bottom line. When you claim to sell news but are actually selling propaganda people eventually figure it out and stop paying for your 'news'.

Dude, come on. Obama's not the face in my locket, but his background was as thoroughly vetted as that of any politician of recent years.

I'm gonna call bovine scatology on this claim. I got two names for you:

Bill Ayers
Jeremiah Wright

And a bonus name: Bernadette Dorn

Quick, name the Republican candidate who had such radicals in his sphere of influence who would get very little light shone upon those relationships?

Take your time, I'll wait.

The media is not obligated to vet anyone. They can vet or not vet as they please. There's no law or duty, implied or otherwise, that requires the media to vet candidates for office.

They set themselves this task many many years ago. That they choose to turn a blind eye speaks more of them than us.

Of course, that's why their trust numbers are only marginally higher than Congress. We've looked behind the curtain, and seen that it's just a man, not a great and grand truth-seeking Wizard.

I R A Darth Aggie: They set themselves this task many many years ago. That they choose to turn a blind eye speaks more of them than us.

No, the media set themselves the task of getting viewers, nothing else. If vetting serves to satisfy their viewers, they'll do it. Otherwise, they won't. Opposing parties, on the other hand, have an interest in making sure they know everything they can possibly learn about a candidate for office, especially if it harms their chances of winning.

Which is why, if you feel that any candidate wasn't vetted properly, you need to blame the opposing party.

Though, frankly, this relentless crying about how Obama supposedly wasn't properly vetted is a euphemism for "the vetting process didn't tell what I wanted to hear, true or not." Obama was under quite a massive level of scrutiny when he ran for office. First by Hillary, then by Republicans. It's ridiculous naivete to assume that there's something about them that wasn't uncovered which would have prevented him from gaining office. What, pray tell, do you think the media should have and could have uncovered about Obama that Hillary and the Republicans could not/did not?

Damned media, always looking up someone's birth certificate or doing all that pesky fact-checking of statements made by politicians in writing or in front of witnesses.

What we need is more football and free twisty bread.

Got a link to the Politico .pdf? 'cause I googled "Obama time at Columbia" and got only links to people not remembering him - except one link for a roommate describing Obama as a loner, aloof, and devising his plan to become president while at Columbia.

Conan, I've had trouble linking here before, but if you Google the string "politico obama columbia pdf," it's the first result.

Meanwhile, from the vile Satanic Socialist campaign of Darth Sanders:

"Sanders called out the media on Sunday for scrutinizing GOP presidential candidate Ben Carson's personal story, thereby diverting attention away from his policy positions. “I think it might be a better idea, I know it's a crazy idea, but maybe we focus on the issues impacting the American people and what candidates are saying, rather than just spending so much time exploring their lives of 30 or 40 years ago,” Sanders said on Meet the Press"

Trickery! Trickery!

Obama was under quite a massive level of scrutiny when he ran for office. ~ Posted by: Patrick at November 9, 2015 8:11 AM

Yes, he was under a great deal of scrutiny, mostly fawning scrutiny by the major networks and their cable offshoots (tingle up the the leg, anyone?).

Yet, there are still things we don't know about him. While I don't think grades or performance as an undergraduate will shed any light on how a person will perform as president, it has been traditional to release both medical records and school transcripts. Candidate Obama released neither. And no one in the media squawked.

Yet, George W. Bush's National Guard transcripts were the most sought-after document in the world. They were the Holy Grail that was going to torpedo his candidacy and the media so desperately wanted them to prove the already-decided narrative of Bush's deceit that Dan Rather still insists his demonstrably falsified documents are the truth. There's even a Hollywood movie with Robert Redford and Cate Blanchett coming out defending the ruse.
(http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3859076/?ref_=nm_flmg_act_2)

Vietnam veterans, some of whom served in the same branch as (or even with) John Kerry, came out and torpedoed (pun intended) his claims to bravery, a claim on which he based a large part of his appeal as a candidate. They were dismissed by the media and and the name they chose for their group was subsequently used as a pejorative for underhanded political attacks. That's what happens to the opposite party's vetting of the candidate the media wants to see elected.

The opposing party can vet a candidate, but they still rely on traditional media to carry the story and report it accurately.

Carson's story is falling apart (as are some of the media attacks on him). He's made those stories (the anger, the knife, the test) such a big part of his candidacy that they deserve to be researched and vetted. And if they prove to be false, then he deserves the fallout.

The question being asked by some here is why Democratic candidates don't get vetted by the media like that.

Candidate Obama spent his youth soaking up the philosophies of firebrand radicals and accused murderers like Wright, Dorn, and Ayers. No one at 30 Rock or West 52nd cared. There were legitimate questions being raised about candidate John Kerry's three Purple Hearts. No one at 30 Rock or West 52nd cared. There were legitimate questions about how Candidate Bill Clinton's wife, Hillary, turned $1,000 ($11,000 shy of the normal futures market buy-in) into $100,000 as a first-time investor in cattle futures - all while her husband was the governor of Arkansas. No one at 30 Rock or West 52nd cared. But Ben Carson says he was an angry child and the media release the hounds.

And, Patrick, thanks for the link to the story on Obama's time at Columbia. Nice to know that someone remembers him there.

Kevin, thanks for the key words. I tried earlier to look up his time at Columbia and only got links to the oft-repeated story that no one remembered him. I've pulled up the article you referenced and am looking forward to reading it.

I said before that it's possible to go through a major college like Columbia and not leave a huge impression on classmates' memories 20 some odd years later. You're only 20 at the time and memories are fickle. And Obama has admitted he was an introvert as a student.

We expect a history of greatness from people whom we elect as presidents. Lots of people remembered Bill Clinton at Georgetown and Bush at Yale. So, we expected that Obama would have made a similarly lasting impression at Columbia. He did not. Perhaps it was unreasonable of us to expect that he would have.

Personally, I think Obama was sufficiently vetted. I speak as one who never voted for him. I find it sufficient to know that lapped up the sermons of one Jeremiah Wright, a professional race-baiter, racist and anti-patriot. In addition to his associations with Bill Ayers, whom Obama dismissed as "a guy he knows in his neighborhood," when in fact Obama launched his political career in Ayers' living room. For him to call Ayers anything less than a friend and benefactor is both dishonest and ungrateful.

Obama is beneficiary of white guilt, aka black privilege. No white person could have been the democratic nominee, much less win the election -- twice -- with those kind of black marks on his past. Shoot, why didn't Robert Byrd run for President? Why not the Republicans go with David Duke?

I consider their associations to be just as egregious as Obama's. So, how was Obama not sufficiently vetted? I know I'd heard enough to decide I wasn't going to vote for him.

So, how was Obama not sufficiently vetted? I know I'd heard enough to decide I wasn't going to vote for him. ~ Posted by: Patrick at November 9, 2015 10:19 AM

I think the question being asked is less about how much he was vetted and more about by whom.

In 2008, it was one thing to have a negative story about a candidate appear on Fox News (known to lean to the right) and quite another to have it appear on ABC's World News Tonight, CBS's Evening News, or CNN (all three presumed at the time to be somewhat neutral in their reporting if not their sympathies).

Notice how many "neutral" networks are touting Hillary's performance at the Benghazi hearings - despite the fact that in those same hearings she admitted to lying to the American people and gleefully trumpeting the wrongful arrest of a filmmaker she knew to have done nothing wrong. And now she wants to be the chief guardian of our civil liberties and in charge of the Justice Department?

I'm "meh" on this as well. Let's just consider for a moment:

1.) How many pictures are taken that never run in a paper?

2.) How many people can accurately recall any of their course titles from college - even while taking them (besides very very basic ones like "Chemistry 1") - better yet years later?

3.) Assuming this is totally fabricated, does it give us any information about how he would be prepared to do the job as he is now?

I can't really see anything useful besides the fact that the media are hurting if this is a "story." I mean, colorfully remembered college antics don't even make it up to interesting dinner conversation.

I mean, colorfully remembered college antics don't even make it up to interesting dinner conversation. ~ Posted by: Shannon at November 9, 2015 12:18 PM

Unless it's a tale about the time you and a friend stole a cow, and your friend tried to make it with the cow.

Tell stories about those kinds of college antics and people will want to party with you.

http://legalinsurrection.com/2015/11/branco-cartoon-trashy/

"They can vet or not vet as they please. There's no law or duty, implied or otherwise, that requires the media to vet candidates for office."

But there is a moral duty, one which the journalism profession took on itself. Since the early 20th century, journalists have always tried to set themselves up as the Arbiters of Truth, and they'll remind you of it every chance they get. For a long time, most people believed them. Heck, even today most people think of Walter Cronkite as a fair and impartial reporter, rather than the partisan hack he was.