Ben Carson’s Advisers Say He’s Struggling With Foreign Policy
In a New York Times article published Tuesday, Duane R. Clarridge, who the Times identifies as one of Carson’s “top advisers on terrorism an national security,” said, “Nobody has been able to sit down with him and have him get one iota of intelligent information about the Middle East.”
“We need to have a conference call once a week where his guys roll out the subjects they think will be out there, and we can make him smart,” Clarridge said.
Carson’s foreign policy chops were questioned recently when at the last Republican debate he claimed the Chinese had intervened in Syria, a fact that has been disputed by the White House. A few days later, Carson was unable to answer on Fox News Sunday who he would join with to form a coalition against the Islamic State.
“He’s been briefed on it so many times,” Armstrong Williams, a friend of Carson’s who does not have an official role in the campaign, told the Times. “I guess he just froze.”
Republicans have such a hard time believing someone could be extremely good at medicine and completely clueless in other areas.
For them, smart = smart. They have no understanding of areas of specialization.