RUSH: This whole story from The Politico is based around the flimsiest of things. Carson never said he went to West Point. He never said he accepted an offer to go to West Point. This is media malpractice, what The Politico has done here. The Politico just says, they’re taking Carson’s story that West Point was talked up to him.

Basically what he said is he met with Westmoreland when he was a top ROTC guy (when Carson was) and that Westmoreland started talking up West Point to him, promoting West Point, and “among the things, he offered me a four-year scholarship.” Now, everybody that goes to West Point or to the Naval Academy pays nothing, because you are making a minimum five-year commitment to them: Four-year undergraduate, two years commissioned service. It’s minimum six years, and can sometimes be more. But nobody pays. That’s the whole point.

You’re… It’s an obligation. You’re making a commitment to go there. They want the best and brightest. There’s an application process, and Carson never said he applied. He never said he attended. The Politico story makes it look like that Westmoreland said to Ben Carson, “Hey, man, come join us at West Point” and that the skids were greased and that Carson might have gone and whatever. But he never did. He never applied, and he never said that he did. Here’s the entire Politico headline: “Ben Carson Admits Fabricating West Point Scholarship.”

That headline is based on this quote from Carson’s spokesman, which admits no such thing. Here’s the quote: “‘He was introduced to folks from West Point by his ROTC Supervisors,’ [campaign manager Barry] Bennett went on. ‘They told him they could help him get an appointment based on his grades and performance in ROTC. He considered it but in the end did not seek admission.'” And from that a story has been built that Ben Carson fabricated and exaggerated what? A conversation with General Westmoreland about attending West Point?

And as I said at the beginning, this story is written in such a way that if you haven’t read Carson’s book — and can I see a show of hands how many of you have? It’s what I thought. Nobody. So if you haven’t… If you haven’t read Carson’s book… Well, I mean, the odds are, what’s a percentage? Even if it’s a number one best-seller, how many people have read it, versus how many people read Drudge and see this link and read and click on this story?

So you read the link, you read The Politico story, and the way this is written, you’re gonna think that Ben Carson has said he attended West Point and he attended on a scholarship and that Politico has found out that he didn’t attend. That’s what they want you to conclude, that he lied about going to West Point. They’ve got the “proof” here. They talked to somebody at West Point. “Carson never showed up here. We didn’t even extend an invitation. Why, we didn’t even apply.” Well, of course he didn’t. He admitted he didn’t apply, and if he didn’t apply he couldn’t have attended, so he couldn’t have lied and said that he did.

He’s admitted that he didn’t apply. The Politico story wants readers to believe that Carson’s telling everybody he went to West Point for four years, but they at The Politico have uncovered the lie. This is right up there with NBC’s editing of the 911 call. This is worse than that, but it’s right up there with NBC editing the 911 call in the Zimmerman case to make it look like Zimmerman was a flat-out racist when the race of Trayvon Martin was the last… He had to be asked about it! He did not volunteer it, contrary to the NBC editing of the 911 tape.

Here’s what Politico wrote in its lede: “Ben Carson’s campaign on Friday admitted, in a response to an inquiry from Politico, that a central point in his inspirational personal story was fabricated: his application and acceptance into the US Military Academy at West Point.” He didn’t fabricate it. See, this… They want you to believe that he applied and attended. His books and the campaign manager quoted in the story admit that he didn’t apply! Therefore, he couldn’t have attended. This is base journalistic malpractice.

Here’s what Carson wrote in his book Gifted Hands: “Afterward, Sgt. Hunt introduced me to General Westmoreland, and I had dinner with him and the Congressional Medal winners. Later I was offered a full scholarship to West Point.” So The Politico says, “He never offered you that! You weren’t offered anything! We talked to West Point. You never applied!” Well, the campaign said today that he never did apply. The whole thing centers around… We’ve had some military academy graduates today, call and say that this is entirely understandable.

If you’re an inner city kid, even though you’re doing well in ROTC, and here comes the future chief of staff of the Army, General William S Westmoreland, and he’s extolling the virtues of West Point and telling you how it works — and part of how it works is you don’t pay anything to go there — it’s entirely understandable that a young kid might think he’s being offered a free ride. Which, in his vernacular, is a scholarship. Which, by the way, happens to be a big objective in many families across this country, be they African-American or otherwise.

Getting a scholarship to college, either academic or athletic, is a huge deal because it costs so damn much. So getting a scholarship has become synonymous with a free ride. And the way Westmoreland’s describing the experience at West Point could have easily sounded to somebody like a young Ben Carson as a free ride, which in his world equals scholarship. He didn’t lie about anything. He didn’t lie about attending West Point. He didn’t write that he went. He didn’t write that Westmoreland got him in.

So what is it that he lied about? What is it the campaign admitted they fabricated or exaggerated? From The Daily Caller News Foundation today, the campaign never admitted to anything, a spokesman for Ben Carson told the Daily Caller today in response to the hit by Politico. “The Politico story is an outright Lie,’ Doug Watts told” the Daily Caller today in response to the Politico hit. “Politico published a piece Friday claiming Carson’s campaign ‘admits fabricating’ the fact that he applied and was admitted to West Point.”

See? From the moment I told you about this, this is exactly what I told you The Politico’s purpose was. They want you to think that Carson never went to West Point but that he says he did. “Politico published a piece Friday claiming Carson’s campaign ‘admits fabricating’ the fact that he applied and was admitted to West Point.” So they go to the West Point spokesbabe today and she says, “No, we had no application. He didn’t apply, and he certainly didn’t attend here.”

So they clearly want ignorant, impressionable, uninformed readers to think that Ben Carson’s out there writing in his book that he went to West Point and that The Politico today has uncovered the fact that he didn’t. And do you want to know how successful this is? I’m not gonna mention any names here. In the opening segment of this program, I’m going through exactly what I just told you here, and somebody on the other side of the glass shouted to me, “It doesn’t matter, he’s toast! The truth doesn’t matter. He’s toast.”

Just based on the first exposure one has to this story, “It doesn’t matter. It’s over. He’s toast,” which is exactly what The Politico wants everybody that reads this story to believe. “‘Ben Carson’s campaign on Friday admitted, in a response to an inquiry from Politico, that a central point in his inspirational personal story was fabricated: his application and acceptance into the US Military Academy at West Point,’ Kyle Cheney writes in the lede. The Carson campaign disputes Politico’s unsubstantiated claim he ever claimed to have applied to West Point or been admitted: ‘He never said he was admitted or even applied.’ …

“Here is the full statement Watts provided to [The Daily Caller]: ‘Dr Carson was the top ROTC student in the City of Detroit. In that role he was invited to meet General Westmoreland. He believes it was at a banquet. He can’t remember with specificity their brief conversation but it centered around Dr. Carson’s performance as ROTC City Executive Officer. He was introduced to folks from West Point by his ROTC Supervisors.” He’s never maintained that he sought admission and never maintained that he attended.

“‘The Politico story is an outright Lie,'” it says here. “Dr. Carson as the leading ROTC student in Detroit was told by his Commanders that he could get an Appointment to the Academy. He never said he was admitted or even applied. The campaign never ‘admitted to anything. This is what we have come to expect from Politico.’ Politico reporter Kyle Cheney, who has the byline on the Carson story, did not immediately respond to multiple requests for comment,” from The Daily Caller.

So the Carson campaign’s acted fast to turn this back onto The Politico, using The Daily Caller and a number of other sources, and now The Politico will not respond. I tell you what’s gonna happen: The truth of this is gonna be ignored. I guarantee you that CNN and the rest of these people are gonna run with the original premise. All they have to do is say, “Politico today alleged…” That’s all they’ve gotta do. They don’t have to report it as factual themselves.

It’s gonna be one of these “seriousness of the charge” deals.

“Oh, it’s a serious charge! Dr. Carson lied about going to West Point? This is serious charge. This must be looked at. We must look into that.” The Politico got the ball rolling today by suggesting that Carson campaign “admitted” that the candidate lied about it. And then they’ll take it from there, and by so doing, continue injecting the false premise, the false narrative into the news cycle and cover and mask — maybe even omit — the campaign’s denials. But my original suspicion about this (and it was easy) has been confirmed.

They want people to think Carson’s been telling people — and wrote — that he attended West Point ’cause William Westmoreland greased the skids and got him in. But he’s never said that. The Politico says he’s been out exaggerating. Trump, of course, is tweeting now saying that Carson’s hallucinating. (chuckling) And this is not good. It’s not good for the campaign. I mean, our leader’s out there hallucinating; it’s no wonder we got problems.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: I want to show you how this works. I want to share with you some headlines that have run during the course of this program, and I want to preface it by saying the only people lying here are the Politico. The only liar in this whole story is The Politico. Well, actually there’s more than that, because every other news organization that has reported and parroted the story is furthering the lie. Politico is totally lying. Ben Carson never said he accepted an invitation to West Point. He never applied. He never attended.

He has been up front. He even admitted to Charlie Rose in an interview last month, “Yeah, I was told I could go to West Point. But I told him that was not the way I wanted to go in life. I wanted to go into medicine.” He’s never misrepresented this. This is an assassination attempt. This piece today is a political assassination attempt following on the heels of that CNBC debate. Here’s some headlines. Business Insider: “Ben Carson Lied About His History with West Point.” New York Daily News: “Ben Carson Admits He Lied About West Point Scholarship and Says Stories About Troubled Childhood Are True.”

From Alabama.com: “Ben Carson Campaign Retracts West Point Story.” They’ve done no such thing! New York Times: “Ben Carson Admits He Was Never Accepted to West Point.” Hey, New York Times? He never said he was! Washington Post: “Why Ben Carson’s West Point Scholarship Claim Made No Sense From the Beginning.” He never made a claim about West Point! He never claimed to attend. He never claimed to apply. He never claimed anything!

CBS News: “Ben Carson’s Campaign Admits He Never Applied to West Point.” USA Today: “Ben Carson Admits Fabricating West Point Story, Report Says.” NBC News: “Ben Carson Never Applied to West Point, Campaign Says.” Newsweek: “Report: Ben Carson Lied About Acceptance into West Point.” Fortune magazine: “Ben Carson Just Admitted to a Serious Lie.” This is Friday, November 6th, as the assassination attempt of Ben Carson is undertaken by the United States American media.

The United States mainstream media today attempted to politically end Ben Carson’s bid for the Republican presidential nomination by telling an outright lie, and then accusing the campaign of lying and admitting to lying. This is horrible, it is despicable, it is infuriating — and I’m telling you, it is this kind of thing that is causing a majority of Americans to reject the mainstream media, the establishment political structure of Washington, and everything they have to do with. This is exactly what the mainstream media used to be able to get away with when they had a monopoly.

This is what the news was when they had a monopoly. There was no Daily Caller reacting to it. There was no me. There was no alternative media correcting the record. When the mainstream media set out to destroy you, this is exactly how it happened. And they continue to do it hoping to prove to themselves that they still have the ability to do it, since their monopoly has been blown. Salon.com: “Ben Carson’s Stealing Valor: GOP Hopeful Admits to Lying About West Point Scholarship.” Fox business, “Carson Campaign Admits West Point Story Is False.”

I think what we have here is an electronic lynching. We have an electronic lynching being conducted against a Republican African-American candidate by a majority white, mainstream American liberal media where — if you’re not a good liberal and a good African-American on their plantation — they are gonna take you out. And we are witnessing it. It’s the same thing, folks, that happened to Clarence Thomas back in 1990 I believe it was. Again, back in 1990 there wasn’t any Fox News. There wasn’t a blogosphere.

There were just the beginnings of the conservative presence on the web — and there was me, talk radio. But there was nothing else. This is the kind of thing they used to get away with. This used to be the standard way news happened. This is not character assassination. This goes way beyond character assassination. This is an attempt to destroy Carson’s reputation, his political future, his career, his credibility, all of it. This is intended to destroy him. Like just told our liberal caller: It’s the only way these people can win. They think Carson’s a lunatic and they still can’t — or are not comfortable taking him on in the arena of ideas. They have to character assassinate and destroy.

This is despicable, despicable stuff.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Yes siree bob. CNBC: “Ben Carson Got Caught.” Who stands to benefit? No bias at CNBC. Washington Post with yet another story: “Ben Carson Has Weird Ideas and Makes Stuff Up. What Kind of President Would He Be?” So here’s the thing. In addition to the crime that’s been committed here — and it really is. It’s a journalistic crime. Ben Carson is a human being. He is one of the finest human beings that walks this planet. He’s harmless. The man has saved more lives than most Americans will ever dream of, the lives of children.

He came from nothing.

He had a single-parent mom. Look, when it comes to character, when it comes to style, when it comes to basic humanity, he’s a fine man. There are few finer. That doesn’t matter, doesn’t matter at all. People who could not hold his doctor smock try to destroy him, just because he doesn’t think the way they do, and that poses a big threat. So they have to destroy him, and it’s just amazing to watch this continue to happen, and it’s infuriating. These people are nowhere near the mettle, the character, the dignity, the decency that Ben Carson is.

Now, he can fight his own battles. I’m not gonna treat him here as a helpless victim, but clearly he is a victim, and this is a political assassination that has taken place today. It’s a very cleverly written story filled with a big, fat lie. In fact, it never even asserts the lie. It requires… It’s written in such a way as to cause readers to believe something that isn’t true. In order for Politico to get away with the story, you must believe…

Whether you’ve heard Ben Carson say it, whether you’ve read his book or not, you must believe that he’s out there bragging about going to West Point and how William Westmoreland plucked him from ROTC and greased the skids and got him into West Point free. He didn’t have to pay anything. That’s what you have to believe. That is the assertion the story makes without stating it. They create circumstances that that’s the conclusion you, as the ignorant reader, will draw.

“Wow, Carson’s out there saying he went to West Point? He wrote it in a book? I didn’t know that, and now he lied about it? Wow, what a scumbag,” is the way you’re supposed to react to reading this story. If you’re a Carson supporter and voter you’re supposed to be so let down that you are going to be… You’re supposed to be so depressed, you are supposed to be just so devastated that you’re gonna give up politics. “There’s nobody that can put the… You can’t put your faith in Ben Carson.

“If you can’t trust Ben Carson, then there’s nobody in this world in politics that you can trust. It’s not worth it,” and you’re gonna quit, and that’s what they want. That is the sole objective. This is from the same media that’s always wringing their hands and wondering why more good people don’t get into politics. These are the same people in the Drive-By Media that supposedly cry about all the negativity in politics, and they whine and moan about all the negative ads. And they hate politics being referred to as a blood sport.

And these are assassins.

These are political assassins, and the weapons are their computer keyboards and their word processors and their Internet lines. Now, Mr. Snerdley, let me ask a quick question. You think this is gonna hurt Carson with his primary voters? (interruption) You think this could do damage to Carson’s standing in the polls now with primary voters? (interruption) What would you think of somebody who proffered the opinion that it may help Carson by creating even more solid support? Standing up and defending the guy and becoming even more in solidarity with him, joining forces against this despicable assassination attempt.

I can’t… You know, The Politico’s become… I mean, that’s where the mainstream Republican people go to leak their stuff. I mean, that’s where we find out what the mainstream Republican Party is thinking about things, and he is leading in the polls, and I don’t think anybody can understand how or why. Therefore they don’t know what to do about it. I think Ben Carson leading in the polls had more people bamboozled than Trump. Trump they can explain: Braggadocios, celebrity, funny, entertainer.

Carson? Dull, speaks softly, not dynamic. “What do you mean he’s 10 points ahead of Hillary! You telling me…? What?” And, you know, they live and die by polls. They look at Carson… I’m talking about Republican establishment, too. They look at Carson and his usurping the lead… It was bad enough when Trump had it. Now Carson, they can’t explain it. Carson and Trump are both antithetical, but Carson really is. I mean, there’s no playbook in the world that tells you to do what Ben Carson’s doing to win.

So they don’t know how to take him out. They wouldn’t know how to go about it. They’ve tried insulting him. They’ve tried making fun of him not being able to do math. Nothing seems to damage his support. “So how about saying he lied about going to West Point? Let’s try that! Let’s try that! Let’s just tell everybody that this guy lied about going to West Point.” That’s what they’re trying to make people believe today.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Armstrong Williams is one of the spokesmen for the Carson campaign and went on CNN this afternoon to reply to the attempted assassination of Carson by Politico.

WILLIAMS: The campaign — Barry Bennett — spoke with Politico, and if you read the entire Politico story, there are contradictions in the story. If you read below, Barry Bennett makes it clear that Dr. Carson was at an event. He can’t recall where the event was. But one of the high points was that General Westmoreland and somebody associated with him were there. And they were honoring someone, and afterwards there was a meeting where they discussed the fact that he had very good grades as an ROTC person, and that he should apply to West Point. Because all of us know that anybody who applies to West Point, if you’re accepted, it’s an automatic scholarship. Dr. Carson was flattered and never followed through or applied, because he knew that medicine was his calling.

RUSH: It’s The Politico headline that’s gotten everybody in an uproar, because it’s very deceptive. Wolf Blitzer said, “In this particular case there was no application, no acceptance. A discussion presumably he had with General Westmoreland to encourage him to apply, is that your understanding?”

WILLIAMS: Yeah, and it’s clearly in the book. It’s clear his recollection. And obviously, you know, sometimes people like to print headlines to get people to read. As I said earlier: If you read the article in its entirety, it’s clearly a contradiction from what Politico is alleging from the campaign to what Dr. Carson’s campaign manager Barry Bennett actually said. There is no fabrication.

RUSH: There isn’t. But the headline says it’s fabricated, and they said the campaign admits it, and they didn’t. The only way this would be a story is if Ben Carson said that he went to West Point, that Westmoreland got him in, and he didn’t pay anything. He got into West Point; he went there for four years. If he had said that, then they’d have a story. But he never went to West Point, never applied. There’s no fabrication. All there is, is a cheap little assassination attempt by Politico which was picked up by everybody else in the Drive-By Media today.