More on Dr. Ben and troublesome reality

Roy Edroso adds some valuable perspective to the Dr. Ben tale-tales meme in With Ben Carson's Truthiness in Question, Rightbloggers Rage Against 'Liberal Media' Village Voice 11/09/2015:

The rest of you may be thinking: Who cares? Reagan thought he was in Germany in World War II, and it didn’t hurt him. Understand, though: Carson has over the years made all kinds of controversial statements about Nazi Germany, slavery, and their relationship to Democratic policy. Reporters haven’t made much of these because they conform with mainstream conservatives thought — see Liberal Fascism, et alia — so any cavils would be counted as politically motivated attacks by Liberal Media.

But fudged biographical details in a book — that’s something the Fourth Estate can work with, as James Frey and many others can tell you. So reporters began to dig.

Buzzfeed announced that Carson had told a commencement audience in 1998 that the biblical Joseph built the Egyptian pyramids to store grain. (“Now all the archeologists think that they were made for the pharaohs’ graves. But…”) Since his statement had nothing to do with the fascist Obama Administration, it was fair game and the story spread.

And he turns his appreciative eye for rightwing kookiness on Carson's defenders: "An 'E' for effort also went to National Review’s Jim Geraghty, who gamely asked, 'How likely is it that Carson’s theory on the pyramids’ use or builder is likely to influence any of his decisions as president? What, is it going to ruin our relationship with Egypt?' This suggests a new slogan for the Carson campaign: 'Crazy but Harmless.'"

As Rick Perlstein has pointed out recently, the long-running relationship between movement conservative politics and con jobs is turning more and more into a fusion the longer it goes on.