Why Ben Carson might not be a liar

Ben Carson is getting called out today for fabricating details about his background. Specifically, the  topic of today is whether he was ever offered a full scholarship to West Point.   He has previously said that while a top ROTC high school student he met General Westmoreland, and was subsequently offered a full scholarship to West Point.

In response to inquiries, West Point has said that there is no record of his ever having applied, and that in any event that all candidates admitted to the school have their costs fully covered.  Essentially, there are no full scholarships because no one pays to attend West Point. Further, an offer of scholarship would never have been made by General Westmoreland regardless of any other fact.

Ben Carson, clearly, is incorrect in his telling of the event.  He was a top ROTC student, and it is probable that he met General Westmoreland in that capacity while attending an event.  However, none of Carson's claims about West Point are true.

So is he a liar? Maybe not.  I know people who have said similarly incorrect things because they misunderstood what was being said.  They misunderstood the context of the situation and wholeheartedly believed things that were simply not true.

The Oscar-nominated movie "Nebraska" is premised on this very type of thing.  The elderly man at the center of the story gets a letter in the mail about a sweepstakes.  He believes he has won a large sum of money, because the letter is written in such a way that it is easy to misunderstand, and he falls for it. No amount of explanation from others can dissuade him from what he knows to be true.

At the other end of the adult life span is my daughter, who is a smart young adult in many ways, but a very vulnerable girl when it comes to understanding some seemingly simple situations.  There have been many occasions where she believed something that was simply not true, because she was unable to put the comments in context.  For example, if she gets an "A" on a class assignment, she will report that she has an "A" average in the class and will likely get an "A" as her final grade.  And she will wholeheartedly believe this, even though she knows she has not turned in numerous other assignments on which she has zero's.  But because she hasn't seen the zero grades (because she didn't turn anything in that showed the grade) she simply doesn't factor them in.

There have also been situations like this one: She calls her doctor to ask about symptoms she describes over the phone.  The doctor says she'll have to go to the emergency room to get checked out.  My daughter then believes she has an emergency medical situation and is gravely ill and must get to the hospital as fast as possible - because the doctor said to go to the emergency room (since they can't diagnose over the phone).

I can easily imagine my daughter having a conversation with General Westmoreland in which she tells him she's the top ROTC student in her city.  He then responds by saying she should apply to West Point, she'd have an excellent chance of admission and by the way, all her costs would be covered if she went there.  I have no doubt at all that what she would say to me after that conversation is that the General offered her a full scholarship to go to West Point.

The point here is that Ben Carson might not actually be lying. He might believe a large portion of the things he says.  That does not make them any more true, however, and it is just as much of a concern that a potential president is unable to understand what is really going as it is that a potential president lies through his teeth.  Either way, Ben Carson is not fit to be president.