Meet conservative icon Dr. Ben Carson...

[Playinghardball]

Republicans R Evil FB

[niyad]

1. was going to say, "do I have to???" but, seeing that list, going to keep it handy.

[SheilaT]

2. Clarence Thomas has a similar background.

What is it about these men that they got where they are thanks to government support, and then turn around and want to deny any support of any kind to others.

[COLGATE4]

5. It's known as the "I've got mine, fuck you" mentality. nt

[UTUSN]

7. Add Ruben NAVARRETTE to the list

He has made a career out of being a "non-traditional voice," which would be a member of an ethnic minority who does not reflect that group's dominant political orientation. He went to Harvard and developed a detestation for "White Liberal males" and for Affirmative Action and the Democratic Party. He poses as being an independent thinker, supposedly picking and choosing from whatever parties, a "cafeteria" voter. It's murky whether he accessed Affirmative Action, whether he graduated Harvard the first time around (something about UCLA, then back to Harvard for a graduate degree). He parlayed his chip on the shoulder into the "non-traditional" career with a diatribe book both in awe of Harvard and attacking whatever he perceived there.

We used to have a great DUer named "Maestro" who had personally engaged NAVARRETTE and Linda CHAVEZ in some kind of a prolonged blogging or in-person debate warfare. NAVARRETTE luerved Shrub and was courted by Governor GOODHAIR during his Oops campaign over iced tea as GOODHAIR's reaching out to Hispanics (whom NAVARRETTE does not represent).

It's some kind of Stockholm Syndrome, or the other terms "Uncle Tom." "houseboy," and "coconut." A Rethug code word is "aspirational" meaning cultural assimilation into the 1950s White Male (think Bill O'LOOFAH) hegemony.

[gwheezie]

3. The weak GOP field

The tea bags love this guy. I doubt they vote for him.

[JaneyVee]

4. Jesus Christ. Where do they find these people?!

[Gothmog]

6. This is great

There is no way that the GOP will ever nominate a non-white. The GOP is based in the south and the south will never support Dr. Carson

[Boomerproud]

8. I've heard enough from him and about him.

He, Allen West and Alan Keyes ought to have dinner together and leave the rest of us alone.

[AceWheeler]

9. While I favor affirmative action...

...one of the problems with it is that some institutions used quotas to implement it (affirmative action was intended to open doors to qualified candidates who otherwise would have been excluded), which means people like Clarence Thomas and Ben Carson get admitted to schools where they are at the bottom in terms of aptitude.

Now, some in that position recognize it and are simply happy to be in such a rarified setting. They are, in fact, welcomed by the academic elite who are not elitist (not so much by intellectual elitists). They have appropriate self-esteem and are quite comfortable recognizing and sitting side-by-side and interacting with those more gifted.

Unfortunately, and as their subsequent behavior reveals, Ben and Clarence were not in that group. Consequently, they erected emotional defenses to minimize the resultant cognitive dissonance produced by being in settings where they barely belong and at some level THEY KNOW IT (and that eats them from the inside and in Clarence's case leads him to never speaking to, or questioning anyone appearing before him in court).

These defenses led them to be the sort of people they are today. They lack humility and employ what might be called reverse arrogance, thereby finding themselves embraced by many others possessing similar insecurity. As they are black, insecure white men welcome them eagerly.