Ben Carson, a Neurosurgeon Under the Knife: The Rise of the Republican Candidate Attracts Scrutiny about His Life

Ben Carson was 14 when he tried to stick a knife in a classmate’s belly. Fortunately, the friend was saved by the belt buckle, which stopped the blow. After a childhood of poverty and violence in Detroit, Carson swapped the knife for a scalpel and became a leading figure in pediatric neurosurgery; he became famous as the first person to successfully separate twins joined at the head. He recounts the episode of the attempted stabbing in his autobiography, “Gifted Hands.”

Carson is a Republican Party candidate in the November 2016 presidential election. In recent polls, he is ahead of magnate Donald Trump, the favorite since he exploded onto the campaign scene in early summer with his populist rhetoric.

It is normal for candidates to try to conceal embarrassing scenes from their past and to be irritated when journalists attempt to reveal them. With Carson, 64, the opposite is true. Instead of hiding his misdeeds, he is putting them on display. They are his medals; they strengthen his exemplary biography of sin and redemption.

This week he has had to face the press because of its distrust over his version of the attempted stabbing of a classmate. Meanwhile, he is striving to prove everything occurred just as he said it did, and that contrary to what his rivals claim, he was indeed a youth offender.

It is cyclical. When a candidate who is not among the favorites begins to gain ground in the polls, journalists are thrust into a competition to unearth not what is in the candidate’s platform, but what is in the candidate’s biography; information about the candidate’s moral failings, that which we call character, or personal integrity. Afterward, the candidates usually disappear. Who today remembers Herman Cain, the pizza entrepreneur, an African-American like Carson, who four years ago momentarily led the Republican candidate polls?

Biblical Tithes

Carson, a member of the Seventh Day Adventist Church, combines a calm tone, almost anesthetized, with a fiercely conservative discourse that excites the most radical party members and attracts evangelical voters, a key part of the electorate. He compares the United States of Barack Obama with Nazi Germany, and the right to abortion or health care reforms, driven by the Democrat, Obama, with slavery. He also argues that a Muslim cannot be president of this country. During debates, when moderators ask him about the viability of his economic plan — a tithe of biblical inspiration, a single tax rate of 10 percent for all taxpayers — he becomes tangled up in vague responses.

Carson is the man of the moment in the Republican campaign; with the frantic pace of social media and breaking news, men or women come and go rapidly, and nothing escapes the scrutiny of the bloodhounds.

CNN investigated the possible stabbing and found nothing. The news website Politico looked into the alleged scholarship which, according to Carson in his autobiography, the Military Academy at West Point offered him. It found that the offer, from none other than the famous Gen. William Westmoreland, was never formally made; there is no evidence of any record of the offer. In fact, West Point does not even offer scholarships because education there is free.

It is not clear whether the inaccuracies in his biography will affect Carson. It has already been noted that this campaign is defying the laws of political gravity. That is true. Trump offended women, war veterans, Latinos and top conservative journalists. Instead of damaging him in the polls, as common sense and previous history would suggest, his notoriety soared.

With three months to go before the start of the primaries, which will determine the Republican nominee, Trump is still on top, next to another political rookie, Carson. What can possibly stop them?

A governor of Louisiana once said: “The only way I can lose this election is if I’m caught in bed with either a dead girl or a live boy.” The old rules no longer apply.