Ben Carson has been featured in a GQ profile in which he’s presented as out of his depth yet arrogant, stubborn, “a soft-spoken demagogue,” and revered on the Right. It’s an interesting piece for how it briefly explores the contrast between Carson’s pre-political reputation and current reputation, universally inspirational in the former and controversial in the latter. (If you need a reminder that politics can be a muddy quicksand to anyone in society . . .)
Carson got a good shot in, however, when he challenged the notion that his novice venture into politics is all the crazier if you consider what it’d be like for President Obama to take up neurosurgery:
I pressed him on this point. What if Barack Obama, I posited with a bit of hyperbole, decided to change careers and said that he now wanted to be a neurosurgeon—and, what’s more, that he wanted his first operation to be separating conjoined twins? Did Carson see any parallels between that hypothetical and his situation? “No,” he said emphatically. “Just the fact that you would ask that question tells me that you don’t understand all that’s involved in becoming a neurosurgeon. There’s so much more than becoming a political figure, it’s not even in the same ballpark.”
That has the makings of a line that’d probably test well, too. Neurosurgeons almost certainly have higher approval ratings than politicians.
Wonder what Rand Paul would say if he were presented with the same sort of question?
