Then take my prescription, Doc, and wait for the feeling to go away. Far away:
Ben Carson may be shifting toward a 2016 run for president.
Carson has said that while he doesn't have a plan to make a run, and would only do so if he felt "called by God." Now, he is "starting to feel it."
According to the Weekly Standard, the retired director of pediatric neurosurgery at Johns Hopkins Hospital said his thoughts about running for president have been affected recently by the enthusiastic audience he has received from across the country.
Existential cloture, Doc. Of course the crowds that come out to see you as you speak across the country react enthusiastically to you - they came out to see you. If they weren't enthusiastic about you, they wouldn't bother showing up. But that doesn't qualify you for the presidency.
"Over the years, there have been many attempts to get me to throw my hat in the political arena," Carson wrote in his new book, "One Nation: What We Can All Do to Save America's Future."
"I have been offered support from around the country and tremendous financial resources if I decide to run for national office. But I have not felt the call to run," he wrote, adding that "If I felt called by God to officially enter the world of politics, I would certainly not hesitate to do so."
But in an interview this week, Carson told the Standard he's "starting to feel it. Because every place I go, it's unbelievable."
Is that God calling you, Doc, or the roar of the crowd stoking up your ego? There's no doubt that it's hypnotic, it's intoxicating, it's addicting, and I'm not claiming it wouldn't affect me the same way. But true calls to greatness, true "moments of destiny," don't tend to come from roaring crowds, Doc. Just look at Barack Obama, for pity's sake.
He said one woman "really touched me the other night … She just kept clinging to my hand and said, 'You have to run. You have to run.' And so many people tell me that, and so I think I'm starting to hear something."
No, that's just creepy. I would have told that woman to stop grabbing on to would-be or actual politicians like blind men and lepers did Jesus Christ. I know life is tough - mein Gott, do I know it - my career has been destroyed, my son is unemployed and has no money to go to college, and did I mention my wife was recently diagnosed with a form of skin cancer? But is this what Americans have sunk to that we graspingly reach out to politicians like a drowning man going down for the third time? "LORD, save me!"? Yes, it is, and that would discourage me from running, if I were Dr. Carson. Let's see: a black politician....raised up on a tsunami of hype....as a messianic figure. Is this starting to sound familiar? Does Ben Carson really want to reprise that role?
Okay, sure, the Left and all its "Hydra" tentacles would leave him (figuratively?) dangling from a tree before he ever got close, and Dr. Carson knows it. Whether it would be worth it to him to put himself and his family through that level of vilificatory nightmare is up to him to decide, but I can't say it'd be worth it to me in his shoes.
But let's address why Ben Carson should not run for president: He's unqualified. Sorry, but that's the truth. He's never held, or sought, any elective office. Politics is a profession. Sorry, but that's the truth. My son has a job interview with a local Fred Meyer grocery store tomorrow. He's not interviewing for the store manager's job. He's not interviewing for the General Manager, COO, or CEO positions. He's interviewing for an entry level position. When I broke into accounting, it was not as a senior, or a manager, or a partner; it was as the juniorist of junior accountants, counting paper clips on audit engagements. Pete Carroll is the head coach of the Super Bowl champions. He used to be the head coach of the multi-time NCAA football champions. Did he start on those lofty perches? Hell, no; he broke in as a lowly secondary coach for Bud Grant with the Minnesota Vikings forty years ago. Is the point sinking in here?
That is not to say that he'd have to start on the local Baltimore sewage commission or whatever. Let Dr. Carson run for governor of Maryland, for example (and wind up like Michael Steele did after running for Paul Sarbanes' old Senate seat in 2006 and getting whacked by Ben Cardin, but still....). Let him hone his new craft in the "minors" for a while before going for the biggest brass ring.
Because Dr. Ben Carson is a good man, a brilliant man, and a better man than I'll ever be. He would make a fantastic president....someday. That day simply is not now. He runs this time and he'll be remembered as the Herman Cain of 2016, or as the twenty-first century Alan Keyes, and for very little else.
If I could ask the lady who wouldn't let go of Dr. Carson's hand one question, it would be this: Don't you think he deserves better than that?
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