Listen, Ben Carson, Always Listen!

After recently watching a video clip from Fox News, I realized that Dr. Ben Carson, Republican candidate for president of the United States, is in big, big trouble.

In the video, Carson is trying to explain to Megyn Kelly why he, like Donald Trump, has been claiming that, during the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attack that shook the world, he saw Muslims in New Jersey celebrating the destruction of the World Trade Center towers, when in actual fact he did not see this at all. It was all a misunderstanding that arose from a confusing encounter with a journalist.

I think I see where his problem lies, and as someone who has done a bit of media training in the past, I feel qualified enough to offer Carson one small piece of basic (and free) advice on how to answer questions from reporters.

And here it is. When facing down journalists, it is of utmost importance to listen to their questions and understand them fully before answering. Listen to all the words.

This is especially important if the question is a long one, say more than four words or so.

Although you may be struggling to stay awake, you must force yourself to listen to the entire question. Otherwise, you might miss some crucial detail that makes your response look foolish, and require you to appear on TV later to explain to yet another reporter what you actually meant. Failing to listen can lead to a tedious and vicious cycle of endless Q&As.

Let’s take this entirely hypothetical set of questions that a cunning journalist might throw at any unsuspecting presidential candidate.

Reporter: “Were American Muslims in New Jersey cheering on 9/11 when the Towers fell? Did you hear about that or see that?”

Not only is the first question 13 words long, it is immediately followed by a second question that, on the surface, seems intended to clarify the first, but might only serve to confuse the candidate. This combination requires extra concentration.

Beware also of the specificity of some parts of the question, specificity that you might miss without proper listening. “Were American Muslims in New Jersey cheering on 9/11 when the Towers fell?”

Use of such specificity by journalists is a well-known “gotcha” tactic for tripping up candidates. By slipping some specific details into the question’s “word salad” of nouns, verbs, etc., the reporter is hoping to pin you down to a concrete position, whereas you would prefer to answer in vague generalities, as is your God-given right.

Without careful listening, you may be lured into answering this question with a simple “Yes”.

This will lead the liberal media into believing that you saw American Muslims cheering in New Jersey on 9/11 when the Towers fell – when that could not be further from the truth.

Though pithy, one-word answers can pose additional problems. They may lead the reporter to badger you further with follow-up questions such as: “Can you expand on that?”

You may be tempted to answer this follow-up with the common-sense observation that:

“There are going to be people who respond inappropriately to everything. I think that was an inappropriate response.”

Still obsessed with pointless specificity, the reporter may see this perfectly appropriate statement of opinion as an evasion of the original question, and pursue you further with a new gotcha question, such as: “Did you see that happening, though?”

Exasperated, you might feel compelled to answer in detail about how you witnessed the particular incident of people cheering, an event which the reporter can’t seem to move on from.

For example, you might say: “I saw the film of it, yes.”

Then, out of the blue, a different reporter – obviously in cahoots with the first – shoots off another, completely unrelated gotcha question: “In New Jersey?”

In your haste to be done with the matter, you might be tempted not to wait to fully understand the question.

Not so fast. The phrase “In New Jersey?” conceals some dangerous specificity that could affect your response. It could be interpreted by unforgiving political observers as referring to a particular geographic area. Without carefully parsing the words “In New Jersey?” you may not recognize the reporter’s hidden “agenda” of trying to pinpoint where you claim the cheering incident took place.

In other words, being too quick to answer with a “Yes” puts you in a position of appearing to agree that the event you witnessed occurred in some place called New Jersey, and that you appear somehow to know where that is.

This might become awkward later as you find yourself attempting to clarify to Megyn Kelly on Fox News that, in fact, you had no clue what the reporter was asking, and certainly didn’t understand that she was talking about that New Jersey – where naturally enough you never saw American Muslims cheering on 9/11.

Simply listening carefully to actual words can sometime save even the most inattentive non-politician from a world of embarrassment. It’s worth giving it a try sometime.

(Postscript: I feel a bit bad about making so much fun of Ben Carson, who is doubtless a pleasant guy, but as presidential candidate comes across as a clueless and/or self-delusional huckster. If I were a Republican, I’d be extremely pissed that so many of my fellow Republicans take him seriously enough to make him a frontrunner. I’d be ashamed. I really would.)

The Parable of the Selfish "Hero"?

There are so many strange little stories coming out of the US presidential race that it’s hard to keep up with them all. However, one involving Ben Carson has stood out in my mind.

In the wake of the fairly recent school shooting in Oregon on October 1^st, Carson, the soft-spoken ex-neurosurgeon and Christian patriot, made some news by offering his advice on how not to get shot. I say “fairly recent school shooting”, since there have been at least three others in the ensuing three-odd weeks, though none as deadly.

In his reaction to the Umpqua Community College shooting spree in which nine people were killed and eight wounded, Carson instructed future victims of such tragedies to be proactive. He said that rather than waiting to be gunned down, the students in Oregon should have rushed the shooter.

On the face of it, this advice makes sense, but was seen by some people as being insensitive, as basically accusing the victims of being too passive. Others have suggested that in extreme-stress situations, such as facing an active shooter, humans often react differently than someone sitting comfortably in a TV studio might think they should. Even if that someone is a famed brain surgeon.

What is enlightening is that Carson, currently number two in the GOP race, does have some experience in facing someone with a gun. Following the kerfuffle over his remarks, Carson related a story from thirty years ago of how he himself had the barrel of a gun jammed in his ribs by an armed robber. He said it was no big deal.

It happened in Baltimore in a Popeye’s fast-food restaurant, where Carson was presumably a customer. As Carson has told the story, an armed man held a gun to him until Carson helpfully pointed out that the robber should be threatening the restaurant's cashier, not a mere patron like himself. Carson explained, no doubt patiently and with a wry smile, “I believe that you want the guy behind the counter”.

The robber apologized for his mistake and proceeded (perhaps sheepishly) to force the hapless restaurant worker at gunpoint to clear out the cash register.

To say this all sounds a bit off-kilter is not the least of it.

Imagine someone, intending to rob a fast-food joint, walks in and threatens the first customer he sees waiting in line to order his meal of Handcrafted Spicy Tenders. Maybe we can assume that the would-be robber had, in fact, never been in a fast-food restaurant. Maybe he didn’t realize how a retail business works and – unlike Willie Sutton – had no clue where the money actually was. The man’s potential for a life of crime at this point would have suffered an unfortunate setback, if not for the sage advice of the good Dr. Carson that he should instead stick up the cashier, or as Carson has phrased it the “appropriate person”.

The entire scenario sounds unreal. What’s more, reporters have not been able to find any official record of this particular robbery ever taking place. When confronted with this fact, a Carson spokesperson speculated that perhaps the police didn’t file a report. Right. Popeye’s must be a very forgiving corporation if it doesn’t require some kind of official paperwork to explain the disappearance of a whole day’s worth of receipts. With a laid-back work environment like that it's perhaps a nice place to work, though maybe prone to get robbed often, not least by its own employees. In other words, the notion of no police report being filed doesn’t ring true.

To my mind, it’s much easier to believe Carson’s little narrative never happen, or at least that it didn't happen the way he "remembers" it. It's called stretching the truth, and many a public figure has been caught out doing it (see Brian Williams, Hillary Clinton, Ronald Reagan, Donald Trump, etc.). 

Now, of course, a narrative doesn’t have to be true to be “true”. I went to Sunday School enough to know that Jesus supposedly told many stories that were not likely true, but had a moral point to them. I’m talking about parables, such as the Parable of the Talents, which apparently illustrates the moral of compounding interest rates and investing through the tale of a servant who came to ruin by burying money in the ground rather than plowing it back into the economy. (The same moral was put to music in “Mary Poppins”, though in that case it was portrayed in a negative light compared to the simple joy of “feeding the birds”).

Maybe Ben Carson sees his Popeye’s story as a parable, not factually true, but serving a larger purpose. The trouble with that generous interpretation is the moral to Carson’s story can be summed up this way: “When faced with a dangerous criminal, it’s best to redirect the danger away from yourself towards someone else.” The Parable of the Selfish Non-hero?

It’s baffling why someone running for president would trot out such an unflattering story, even if it were true, especially if it were true. Maybe he really believes it. Or maybe he sees no reason to let reality stand in the way of a good story, even if the story's not truly that good.  

Photo courtesy Gage Skidmore.