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| Goodbye Ben Carson. Thanks for the laughs | Goodbye Ben Carson. Thanks for the laughs |
| (35 minutes later) | |
| The worst news of the election so far is that Ben Carson will drop out of the Republican primary race. Carson was the only candidate of either party who brought me unmitigated joy. He could scarcely begin to open his mouth before the corners of mine turned up. Before he was done speaking, I was guaranteed a deep belly laugh. If I was lucky, my eyes welled with tears of uncontrollable mirth. | The worst news of the election so far is that Ben Carson will drop out of the Republican primary race. Carson was the only candidate of either party who brought me unmitigated joy. He could scarcely begin to open his mouth before the corners of mine turned up. Before he was done speaking, I was guaranteed a deep belly laugh. If I was lucky, my eyes welled with tears of uncontrollable mirth. |
| But my joy was apparently not enough to propel Carson forward. After faltering yet again on Super Tuesday, finishing last or second-to-last in all the contests, the retired neurosurgeon said he would make a speech on Friday and ominously withdrew from Thursday’s debate. | But my joy was apparently not enough to propel Carson forward. After faltering yet again on Super Tuesday, finishing last or second-to-last in all the contests, the retired neurosurgeon said he would make a speech on Friday and ominously withdrew from Thursday’s debate. |
| “I do not see a political path forward,” Carson said. And even this brought a smile to my face, reminding me of another debate stage. It was just ahead of the New Hampshire primary, in early February, when Carson enacted perhaps the most awkward moment of a campaign loaded down with the weight of incredible awkwardness. | |
| The announcer called his name, “Dr Ben Carson”, and Carson walked out from backstage into a narrow curtained hallway leading to the debate stage. Then he stopped, duck footed with his hands clasped before him. A production aide stuck his head out from backstage and waved our candidate forward, but – aww, forget it: just watch the video. | |
| Related: Carson prepares to throw in towel | Related: Carson prepares to throw in towel |
| I consider it the finest moment of the 2016 race, and I owe it all to Dr Ben Carson.Ali, you’ll say, as a good liberal, how can you be so enamored of a candidate who held such objectionable rightwing views? Because, dear reader, what impels us to laugh ought to be treasured. Such things do not hold to ideological lines. And if Ben Carson can make me laugh while spewing horrific, offensive and often downright wacky bile, then more power to him. (I mean, not the power of the Oval Office, for christsake, but enough to continue on to the Republican convention at least.) | |
| And how I did laugh while Ben Carson spewed all those things – in the monotonous, soft-spoken way only he could. Asked at December debate if, given his past in pediatric neurosurgery, Carson could order bombings that might kill hundreds or thousands of children, the good doctor responded: “Well, interestingly enough, you should see the eyes of some of those children when I say to them, ‘We’re going to have to open your head up, and take out this tumor.’ They’re not happy about it – believe me – and they don’t like me very much at that point.” That is interestingly enough. | |
| In typical Republican fashion, Carson called for loosening the military’s rules of engagement in the war with the Islamic State. So far, so Republican. And yet his logic and delivery had me in stitches. “Just tell them that,” Carson said, waving his hands as if this were the most brilliant and obvious military strategy since Odysseus climbed in that wooden horse, “you put a people in there, we’re going to bomb them. So don’t put people in there if you don’t want them bombed. You know? That’s so simple.” | In typical Republican fashion, Carson called for loosening the military’s rules of engagement in the war with the Islamic State. So far, so Republican. And yet his logic and delivery had me in stitches. “Just tell them that,” Carson said, waving his hands as if this were the most brilliant and obvious military strategy since Odysseus climbed in that wooden horse, “you put a people in there, we’re going to bomb them. So don’t put people in there if you don’t want them bombed. You know? That’s so simple.” |
| Those last words came with the exasperated lilt of a man who had said almost the same thing – as yet painfully unheeded by President Obama or the debate moderators – a month earlier, with the warning introduced by a sing-songy shout-out to the Islamic State’s oil truck drivers: “Heyyy guys!” | Those last words came with the exasperated lilt of a man who had said almost the same thing – as yet painfully unheeded by President Obama or the debate moderators – a month earlier, with the warning introduced by a sing-songy shout-out to the Islamic State’s oil truck drivers: “Heyyy guys!” |
| Lots of the Republicans have explicit plans to commit war crimes; none has made them so enjoyable to hear about. | Lots of the Republicans have explicit plans to commit war crimes; none has made them so enjoyable to hear about. |
| Then there was the question about whether being gay is a choice? “Absolutely.” How do you know? “Because, a lot of people go into prison, and when they go into prison they’re straight, and when they come out they’re gay. So” – and here his eyebrows shoot up with assuredness – “did something happen when they were in there?” | |
| There’s so much more. The Holocaust wouldn’t have happened if more German Jews were armed. Carson isn’t anti-woman because his mom is responsible for his success. Islam isn’t a religion, it’s a “life organization system” – says a man who has clearly never seen the chaos of the Muslim world with his own two eyes, but is undaunted in his quest to be the funniest bigot in national politics. Carson on slavery: “I know that’s one of those words you’re not supposed to say, but I’m saying it.” Yes you are, Dr Carson. You’re saying it a lot. Obamacare? It’s slavery. Abortion? It’s slavery, too. | |
| And Carson was an erudite defender of conservative philosophy. Why is the welfare state bad? Because, before Woodrow Wilson and Lyndon Johnson: “If someone got killed by a bear, everyone took care of their family.” | And Carson was an erudite defender of conservative philosophy. Why is the welfare state bad? Because, before Woodrow Wilson and Lyndon Johnson: “If someone got killed by a bear, everyone took care of their family.” |
| Then there were all those wonderful procedural moments in the debates. During a January debate, Jeb Bush told the crowd: “Everybody on this stage is better than Hillary Clinton.” Evoking the debate rule that if you are attacked, you get a response, Carson took his shot: “Neil, I was mentioned too,” he told Fox News host Neil Cavuto, who questioned him. “Yeah, they said ‘everybody’,” responded the brain surgeon, appearing, only a little bit, to be speaking in jest. Carson once asked on stage: “Can somebody attack me please?” | |
| No, Doc, we cannot. There is plenty of frightening rightwing ridiculousness to go around this Republican presidential season, but none pulled if off with the veneer of bumbling hilarity that Ben Carson did. We, the bedraggled public, can do nothing but salute you, sir. Where once we had reason to switch on the twice-weekly Republican debates and laugh, now we are left only to cower in fear. |