Dr. Ben Carson a slave to insensitive hyperbole

GOP’s new star Dr. Ben Carson a slave to insensitive hyperbole

by Leonard Pitts Jr.

In 1865, American slavery ended with the Confederate surrender at Appomattox Courthouse and the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment.

Since that time, these things have happened:

-- In 1871, fire destroyed the city of Chicago.
-- In 1896, the Supreme Court legalized segregation.
-- In 1906, an earthquake leveled the city of San Francisco.
-- In 1929, the stock market crashed, plunging the nation into the Great Depression.
-- In 1941, over 2,400 Americans died in a sneak attack upon Pearl Harbor, Hawaii.
-- In 1963, the president of the United States was murdered in Dallas.
-- In 1974, a president resigned in scandal and disgrace.
-- In 2001, 3,000 people died in a terrorist attack.
-- In 2005, a hurricane swamped the Gulf Coast.
-- In 2008, corporate greed brought the nation to the brink of economic collapse.

But the most awful thing America has faced in the last 148 years is a law Congress passed in 2010 requiring that those who are able, purchase health insurance.

So says Ben Carson, celebrated neurosurgeon and newly-minted star of the extreme political right. Speaking last week in Washington before the so-called Values Voter Summit, he said, “Obamacare is really, I think, the worst thing that has happened in this nation since slavery. And it is .?.?. in a way, it is slavery.”

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