Should Ben Carson's lies about his West Point application make him ineligible to be president of the United States?

CW2 Ernest Krutzsch Actually, generals can't sponsor anyone, and aren't involved in the process.

CSM David Heidke If one of your subordinates came to you and told you that someone had offered them a scholarship to West Point, and ou found out that this wasn't the case, would you consider it a lie? I think what we see in this discussion is that folks have a widely varying conception of lying. This is worrying, given the docs we place on integrity in the military. Perhaps the Wang study was correct---that in the military, we have an uncomfortable relationship with the truth (much like Carson; in my perception, he's stating he was offered a scholarship to West Point; he wasn't; how is this not lying?)

Sorry, I was in a hurry, I meant if General Westmoreland was one of your references in the process, it would carry a lot of weight. Can you remember every detail of what happened to you in high school? Oh, and if you think stories don't grow over time, head to a VFW or American Legion Post. Integrity in some aspects of the military is questionable at best. I was on a battalion staff and the other staff officers lied to the commander frequently, because they didn't want to be the bearer of bad news. The military in general have good people, but there are some who have no integrity

That's pretty much how I read it too, CSM David Heidke. Even the Politico story makes enough turns that it's clear they are making a big thing out of a small one.

MSgt James Mullis What's the difference between 'greatly embellished for entertainment value' and outright lies? Do you really believe he wrote that book without political aspirations?

As far as Dr. Carson is concerned, he's not someone I'm actively supporting for POTUS, but the basis for his story was documented in Mr. Borders' comment and wasn't a lie. Maybe you will read it and change part of your assumption?

SPC K Webb - Of course Obama's book was written and more importantly published as a stepping stone to the national political stage. That said, it doesn't mean that everything in it was a lie. While an embellishment can be a lie, it is not always one. An Embellishment is more of an adornment to something that is real or happened, while a lie is making up something from scratch. An example could be the statement that someone flew into a war zone while active fighting was occurring. That's a fairly vague statement and sounds heroic. But it could be true whether you flew directly into an actual battle or flew into an airport 300 miles away. The same person would be lying if he had actually flown into the airport 300 miles from the shooting and changed his statement to "I flew into XXX while under fire" which is kind of what Hillary Clinton once said.

In Ben Carson's case he wrote "Later I was offered a full scholarship to West Point." While, substantially true its vague enough that most readers would falsely assume the statement meant he received a Congressional nomination, and was vetted, interviewed, and approved to attend the school. Which is not what really happened, what did happen is that that one or more Army officers told him they could get him into West Point.

Here's an article from the Washington Post the describes what is happening.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2015/11/12/why-arent-hillary-clintons-exaggerations-of-her-life-story-not-bigger-news/

Please try not to be offended by this: but are all of you who defend Carson's actions really making the argument that it's ok for Carson to lie because (in your conception, at least) Clinton and Obama lied, too? The old "two wrongs don't make a right" idea is no longer valid? Why can't we evaluate Carson (or others) on their own terms?

MSgt (Join to see) BS

I read that too, and heard that he was on a number of TV and radio programs calling out Politico for their distortions.