"If you just saw it the way I do, there'd be no need for facts!"
(Or fact-checking.)
Did Ben Carson really have a violent childhood in which he hit a classmate in the head with a lock in his hand, among other incidents? CNN has gone looking for anyone who knew Carson when he was young and remembers the Republican presidential candidate having the violent temper he has repeatedly described in his books and speeches, but no one seems to remember Carson that way. This allegation that Ben Carson may not have been dangerous and violent in his youth has angered Ben Carson. Carson is outraged that CNN would dare question his accounts of his own life (the details of which have shifted from telling to telling) and because—get this—the media didn't apply this level of scrutiny to President Obama! Reminded that "it's called vetting" and provided with specific instances of questions the media raised about Obama's autobiography, Carson laughed "give me a break."
"What you all did with President Obama doesn't even come close - doesn't even come close to what you guys are trying to do in my case. And you're going to keep going back, trying to find he said this 12 years ago. It is just garbage.
"Brazen Lies About Obama"
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Interviewing people about the pivotal events in a candidate's past when the candidate's own public accounts of those events have changed from telling to telling? Outrageous! And way, way beyond years of questions about the president's birth certificate, amiright? But Carson certainly has mastered the "I'm a victim of the media" tone. CNN interviewed classmates of Carson from elementary, middle, and high school as well as neighbors, and the most that anyone said was that they had heard a rumor of one of the violent incidents Carson has repeatedly described—with the details of his account shifting over time—while another said that Carson's book was the first he'd heard of any violence, even though "It would have been all over the whole school." Never mind that, though. According to Carson, "the story is well documented." Documented by his own claims, which, again, have changed. But that should be all the documentation we need, apparently. It's a lot like his story of being held up at gunpoint and bravely directing the robber to point his gun at a fast food worker—another story no one could verify but Carson insisted we believe because he said it was so. Did no one ever question Ben Carson during his entire career as a surgeon? Is that what's going on here—that before running for president he hadn't been challenged in so long that he thinks he can just say whatever he wants, however far from the truth, and everyone around him will nod and feel grateful for his wisdom?
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