This week’s Mainstream Media Scream features a blast from the past, a reference to the 2012 fight sparked when President Obama said that, “If you’ve got a business — you didn’t build that.”
The latest version came Sunday from Marc Lamont Hill, a CNN commentator and distinguished professor of African-American Studies at Morehouse College, who suggested that stories of self-made men like Ben Carson are myths and lies.
On “CNN Newsroom With Poppy Harlow,” he said:
“I mean, Ben Carson — the greatest lie in American history is the myth of the self-made person. Nobody makes themselves. We’re all shaped by communities, by people who struggled and sacrificed for us, by governments that offer safety nets. And what Ben Carson is able to do essentially is reject all that stuff and say that I was saved …
“Ben Carson is able to say, ‘I was saved by Jesus and hard work.’ That allows him to reject a safety net. That allows him to push back against the expansion of a welfare state. That allows him to resist tax cuts for the middle class and poor and tax hikes for the wealthy. It allows him to create an entire narrative and when people say, ‘Hey, wait a minute, why are you doing this?’ Ben Carson can say, ‘Hey, because I did it myself,’ and it makes white voters feel comfortable …”
Media Research Center Vice President of Research Brent Baker explains our pick: “Hill echoed Barack Obama’s, ‘You didn’t build that’ mentality that individual success in America isn’t possible without government. It explains the dependency mentality which Carson’s story threatens, so liberals like Hill must discredit Carson’s inspiring ‘self-made man’ narrative.”
Rating: Four out of five screams.
Paul Bedard, the Washington Examiner’s “Washington Secrets” columnist, can be contacted at [email protected].
