Ben Carson’s presidential campaign is parodying recent media scrutiny of his past.
In a 76-second video posted on the retired neurosurgeon’s Twitter account, his staff offers up a top-10 list of Carson’s (innocent and apparently tongue-in-cheek) youthful indiscretions.
Such as: “In college, Ben Carson threw away a glass bottle in a paper-products-only receptacle.”
And: “When he was a child, witnesses say that Dr. Ben Carson used to occasionally color outside the lines.”
And also: “The first time Ben went golfing, he didn’t replace the divots.”
Carson tweeted that “the campaign staff wanted to make sure to stay ahead of any ‘breaking stories’ in the news today.”
The video comes ahead of Tuesday night’s Republican presidential debate on Fox Business Network — one in which Carson’s history could make him the target of criticism from some of the seven other contenders on stage, particularly given his rise to first or second place in recent national GOP polls.
Carson’s descriptions about his youth — many included in his 1990 autobiography “Gifted Hands” — have come under intense scrutiny in the last week.
First, CNN reported that after speaking with nine friends, classmates and neighbors who grew up with Carson, none had any memory of the anger or violence the candidate has described growing up in his book. Some of those interviewed expressed skepticism, but noted that they could not know what had happened behind closed doors.
The next day, Politico published a story reporting that the Carson campaign admitted that he “fabricated” an account of applying and being admitted to West Point — a headline the outlet later softened.
And late Friday, the Wall Street Journal reported that it couldn’t confirm Carson’s account of protecting white students during a race riot back when he was a high school junior or a story involving a psychology exam while at Yale.
Some Republican presidential candidates have criticized Carson — including New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, who said he doesn’t have “a lot of sympathy” for Carson’s complaints about unfair treatment, and Donald Trump, who joked Monday night in Illinois about how this is a “strange election.”
“You stab somebody and the newspapers say you didn’t do it,” Trump said. “And you say, ‘Yes, I did. I did it.’ ‘No, you didn’t.’ ‘Yes, I did! I stabbed him and it hit the belt’!”
But Carson dismissed the scrutiny on Sunday in Puerto Rico, telling reporters there that he wouldn’t answer every question about his childhood.
“The burden of proof is not going to be on me to corroborate everything I have ever talked about in my life, because once I start down that road, from now until the election, you’re going to be spending your time doing that and we have much more important things to do,” Carson said. “You’re asking me about something that occurred 50 years ago. And you expect me to have the details about that? Forget about it. It’s not going to happen.”
Carson also has defended his childhood accounts on his social media, including a Facebook post Monday where he linked to a 1997 Parade magazine story that featured a quote from his mother Sonya Carson backing up his description of an incident in his childhood.