No fucking way.

...are not hiring ANYONE considered an 'expert' in the Middle East. The ME 'experts' have been running stuff for a decade, and their 'expertise' is in SERIOUS question.

(Okay, the vote thing is hyperbole, but not by a lot. This ME thing is ridiculous.)

Politics and foreign policy is either something you are either interested in and follow, or you aren't.

It isn't something you can just pick up.

Clearly he's at a disadvantage.

advisor write a 1-page issue paper. At the bottom of the page, have two options. Just check the one that you want done.

Aside from him just cashing in.

He had a disastrous interview on Fox News this weekend

http://www.politicususa.com/2015/11/15/ben-carson-destructs-full-blown-nutter-fox-news.html

He's pretty clueless on just about everything he spouts off on.

It would be faster to list the things he does grasp.

Here's the list

like a brain surgeon struggling to grasp where the skull is located

At least he knows where Ubeki-beki-bekistan is.

I've posted about him a lot here over the years. Here's something I posted a little over a year ago.

I started collecting bits and pieces on him when his name came up as having possibly been involved with the Niger forgeries. In addition to that and Iran-Contra, Clarridge was also involved with Chalabi's Iraqi National Congress -- and his Eclipse Group may have played a role in the Benghazi attack. The Benghazi allegations might be a stretch, but the bit I've put in boldface, about Clarridge's reports being used to "leak" information to Fox News that could be embarrassing to the Obama administration, seems extremely relevant now.

http://www.counterpunch.org/2001/11/08/the-counter-terror-network/

Duane “Dewey” Clarridge, a man with an extensive background in terror, was well equipped for managing this job. A rabid right wing ideologue, he was chief of the CIA’s station in Turkey in the late 1960s and 1970s, when the fascist Grey Wolves went on a terror rampage, bombing, shooting and killing thousands of officials, journalists, students, lawyers, labor organizers, social democrats, left-wing activists and Kurds. Since then, Turkey’ military dictatorship has been one of America’s strongest allies.

A body-builder and certified member of the Old Boy clique that runs the CIA, Clarridge in August 1976 helped ADDO Ted Shackley recruit Albert Hakim, later a member of Secord’s Enterprise, to spy in Iran. (Shackley was soon thereafter forced into retirement due to his association with “rogue elephant” Ed Wilson, the CIA officer who sold tons of explosives to Libya.) Clarridge was serving as the CIA’s station chief in Rome when the Pope was shot, and was chief of Latin America Division from 1981 until 1984, when Nicaraguan harbors were mined and the psyops “murder manual” was distributed to the Contras, with his approval. In this capacity Clarridge helped Richard Secord move PLO weapons captured by Israeli forces during their bloody invasion of Lebanon, through Noriega in Panama, to the Contras.

Clarridge, as chief of the Europe Division, next played a pivotal role in the illegal Iran-Contra operation, by providing the back channel, through his station chief in Lisbon, that allowed North and Secord’s Enterprise to sell HAWK and TOW missiles to the Iranians, at a huge profit for Secord and his Israeli counterparts, in exchange for the release of several American hostages. The operation, which subverted the U.S. Constitution and the Bolland Amendments passed by Congress, made Ronald Reagan into the world’s biggest, but most adorable, liar.


http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/ops/iraq-downing.htm

In November of 1993, Ahmad Chalabi, the leader of the Iraqi National Congress, presented the Clinton Administration with a detailed, four-phase war plan entitled "The End Game," along with a request for the money to finance the plan. In March, 1995, Chalabi's insurrection was launched, and failed dramatically. In late 1998 President Clinton signed the Iraq Liberation Act, which allocated $97 million for training and military equipment for the Iraqi opposition. . . .

Following the 11 September 2001 terrorist attacks, and the quick success of Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan, the INC plan was modified. The new plan was developed with the help of a retired four-star Army general, Wayne Downing , and former CIA officer Duane (Dewey) Clarridge, who have served as unpaid consultants to the INC. Clarridge ran the U.S.-backed contras who fought the leftist Sandanista regime in Nicaragua during the Reagan administration. Downing was appointed by President Bush in October 2001 to be the deputy national-security adviser for combatting terrorism. General Downing resigned in July 2002, reportedly frustrated by the administration's lack of action against Iraq. . . .

In December 2001 Chalabi's revised plan, modified by a Pentagon planning group authorized by Paul Wolfowitz, was presented to the Joint Chiefs of Staff for evaluation. Anthony Zinni, the retired general who had served as head of Central Command responsible for US forces in the Middle East, had dismissed the plan as the "Bay of Goats."


http://original.antiwar.com/justin/2012/11/04/the-mystery-behind-the-benghazi-attack/

The Mystery Behind the Benghazi Attack
Were the Obama administration and Ambassador Stevens set up?

A reporter found the evidence of our folly in the ruins of the American consulate in Benghazi, scattered on the floor where it had been overlooked by looters. Amid the rubble and ashes were documents left there since the attack — clearly State Department correspondence — including “two unsigned draft letters” both dated Sept. 11: the missives “express strong fears about the security situation” and dissatisfaction with the response from higher ups. . . .

The security arrangements for the Benghazi consulate, and indeed for all our operations in Libya, are under scrutiny, and one detail is being seized on: the hiring of a small and little-known outfit, Blue Mountain Security, based in the UK, to guard the Benghazi consulate. . . .

Unarmed “security” guards — who ever heard of that? How the heck did Blue Mountain get this contract? That’s the really interesting part….

The Libyan government had previously been hostile to the idea of allowing foreign security companies to operate within their borders, but modified the rules by granting access to those who could find a local (presumably Libyan) partner. Blue Mountain, described by UPI as “leading the way” for foreign mercenaries in Libya, found such a partner: the Eclipse Group, according to several news accounts. However, Eclipse isn’t “local,” not by any stretch of the imagination: the Eclipse Group is Duane Clarridge’s “private CIA,” which up until recently had a $6 million DoD contract — withdrawn after Eclipse embarked on a campaign to prove Afghan President Hamid Karzai’s drug addiction. After the cut-off of Pentagon funds, Clarridge — one of the Iran-Contra defendants, indicted and later pardoned — found undisclosed “private donors” to run his gang of international cowboys. His reports, regularly issued to Pentagon insiders and journalists, have been used to target militants in Afghanistan and Pakistan: they have also been utilized by Fox News and others to “leak” information embarrassing to the Obama administration.

This guy really needs to get a grip.

I think he'll be out of contention by Christmas.