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"       A few weeks ago, the dialogue around the field of Republican candidates\u00A0shifted from &amp;quot;Holy shit I can&amp;#039;t believe this racist\u00A0haunted Chucky doll with a real estate degree might actually be President&amp;quot; to &amp;quot;Holy shit I can&amp;#039;t believe this bemusedly lobotmized\u00A0brain surgeon might actually be President.&amp;quot;\u00A0And thus, curious voters and abnormal psychologists across the country have been haunted by one lingering question: What\u00A0is Ben Carson&amp;#039;s deal? We may never know the answer to that question, but with the media\u00A0honing\u00A0in\u00A0as\u00A0he\u00A0gains\u00A0in the polls, and his core message of incuriosity about the actual job of governance resonates\u00A0with the base, a clearer picture is starting to emerge\u00A0of this truly singular character. It seems that, much like the vertebrate cerebrum he\u00A0famously made his name slicing\u00A0over the decades, Carson is a man governed by two hemispheres:\u00A0one of science and logic,\u00A0the other given over to flights of exceptionally creative fancy. This is not exactly unique for a politician, of course. You have to be a truly benighted egoist to take stock of the national landscape and think, &amp;quot;You know what this country needs to get back on the right track? My proprietary blend of nonsense.&amp;quot;\u00A0But it&amp;#039;s impossible to shake the eerie feeling of disconnect between Carson&amp;#039;s old day job and his current gig. Take his speculation about the storage capabilities of the Egyptian pyramids, for example, or his curious allegiance with a predatory company whose magic beans he claimed helped him beat cancer. And what\u00A0about his foray into alternate historical speculative fiction vis-\u00E0-vis the holocaust?  There wouldn&amp;#039;t be space here to run through all of the fabrications Carson has been accused of lately, including, most recently, a number of old friends and classmates saying they have no recollection of a number of violent stories\u00A0Carson has been telling about his youth. But, in Carson&amp;#039;s purview, that&amp;#039;s just because everyone&amp;#039;s\u00A0trying to bring a good man down.  &amp;quot;There is a desperation on behalf of some to try to find ways to tarnish me because they&amp;#039;ve been looking through everything, they have been talking to everybody I&amp;#039;ve ever known, everybody I&amp;#039;ve ever seen,&amp;quot; Carson said recently. That may be true, and\u00A0I&amp;#039;ll certainly cop to it myself, but we needn&amp;#039;t really look much further than his own words and actions for a glimpse at how truly Pro Bowl-caliber strange he is. Although getting a fact check from one of his more frequent conversation partners, the one with the big chat room in the clouds, might be a bit difficult. The Washington Post did some of the leg work on that recently, reading\u2014or subjecting themselves to, rather\u2014some of Carson&amp;#039;s numerous volumes. As Carlos Lozada points out, one particular theme tends to recur throughout each of them: Carson, like many successful people, actually seems to believe God is meddling in his everyday affairs. There&amp;#039;s nothing wrong with that, and as an O&amp;#039;Neil from Massachusetts, I can assure you I&amp;#039;m familiar with the procedure. But Carson seems to think of\u00A0God as the\u00A0on-set production assistant in the filming of Ben Carson&amp;#039;s IRL biopic, right down to the green room\u00A0sandwich choices.  Carson revealed\u00A0in his book, Gifted Hands, which is also the title of my sex tape, that while he was a student at Yale,\u00A0he prayed to God for bus fare to help him get to church, and he shortly thereafter found $10 on the ground. Before that, he had prayed to God to give him the answers to a test he hadn&amp;#039;t studied for\u2014which sounds suspiciously like his performance at most of the primary debates\u2014and, sure enough, he passed with flying colors! God even helped Carson find his missing passport.  You might think, Hm, doesn&amp;#039;t God have more important things to worry about than Ben Carson&amp;#039;s catalogue of misplaced knickknacks?\u00A0To\u00A0be sure, Carson\u00A0has also credited much of his success in the operating room to God. But the fact that he credits so much of his life and career to the Maker&amp;#039;s invisible scalpel tells us a lot about why a man with so little aptitude\u2014or, indeed, interest, it seems\u2014in the actual process of governing, world affairs, economics, and all the other minor prerequisites for the job of\u00A0President, believes he&amp;#039;s the one man uniquely qualified for the job.  This isn&amp;#039;t a hit job by a card-carrying member of the liberal media. It&amp;#039;s merely relaying things that Carson has told us about himself. And if his words don&amp;#039;t necessarily persuade you, how about some pictures? The Guardian recently took us on a tour through Carson&amp;#039;s home in Maryland, pointing out that it may not be Trump who&amp;#039;s got the biggest ego of\u00A0the Republicans in the race. Among the dozens of framed certificates and awards, including the Presidential Medal of Freedom, numerous photos with actors and presidents, magazine clippings, and, one can only hope, a warehouse full of bowling trophies, are two artifacts that tell you almost everything you need to know about Carson. It&amp;#039;s hard to pick a favorite between\u00A0the two, but let&amp;#039;s just say that when the framed portrait\u00A0of yourself and\u00A0your pal Jesus isn&amp;#039;t automatically the most striking\u00A0thing on display, you know something is truly off. There is also,\u00A0chiseled into stone on a wall, an oddly clunky phrasing and even more oddly-kerned lettering of a line from Proverbs. &amp;quot;By Humility And The Fear Of The Lord Are Riches, Honor And Life, poverbs [sic] 22:4&amp;quot; How are any of us ever going to understand a man who has a Bible verse about humility chiseled into a wall in\u00A0his home, surrounded by hundreds of testaments to himself, who is so confident in his own greatness that he doesn&amp;#039;t even bother\u00A0to fix the typo? Then again, a belief that God is giving you marching orders, and an inability to spell did wonders for George W. Bush&amp;#039;s candidacy. Maybe Carson is the man for the job after all. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/a39575/ben-carson-jesus-painting/>