Ben Carson has argued that the Nazi regime started out “innocently,” called 9/11 an “isolated” incident and placed Red China in the Middle East. His own foreign policy adviser recently complained that he can not grasp “one iota of intelligent information” about the region.
But Carson today proudly explained that he is not dumb because. . . he is just like Sarah Palin!
At the South Carolina Tea Party convention Carson argued that establishment types are trying to keep him from the Oval Office since he reminds them of Palin. After all, during her aborted term as Alaska governor, she “put Democrats and Republicans in jail for corruption. You bring someone like that to Washington DC, and it will be a ghost town.”
As probably even junior high students understand, governors do not get people jailed.
Prosecutors indict, of course. Juries convict. And judges sentence.
So where did Carson get this idea that Palin sent people to the slammer?
He might have been thinking about her service on the Oil and Gas Conversation Commission before she became governor. Palin filed ethic complaints against two fellow commissioners. One resigned; the other paid a $12,000 fine.
Another possible source for Carson’s confusion: when Palin became governor in 2006 the feds were already investigating Alaska political corruption. The investigation led to the indictment of lobbyists, state legislators and the late Alaska senator Ted Stevens. Many pleaded guilty and were sentenced to jail.
Stevens was convicted. But a federal judge later vacated the jury ruling, citing prosecutorial misconduct. So basically, in bragging about something Palin did not do he glorified an investigation that ended in ignominy for the government!