Two Alabama incidents that prove the media treat Obama and Carson differently

SELMA, Ala. — GOP presidential candidate Dr. Ben Carson made major headlines over the weekend after Politico, a national political newspaper in Virginia claimed the candidate’s presidential campaign had admitted to “fabricating” a story regarding Carson’s recount that he received a “full scholarship” to attend the military academy West Point.

The Politico article, which many are calling a “hit piece,” asserted Dr. Ben Carson had lied about being offered a “full scholarship” to West Point in his autobiography, “Gifted Hands.” In a rereading of the transpired events in his book, Carson describes the conversation with West Point faculty as being explicitly informal. Carson never officially applied to West Point, but rather acknowledged the informal offer from staff and knew West Point wasn’t something that aligned with his already set goals.

Carson’s presidential campaign staff rebuked the now-corrected article slamming the claims as “outright lies.” The GOP presidential candidate even called out the mainstream news media for more heavily scrutinizing him than they did  now-President Barack Obama in the 2008 campaign..

“I do not remember this level of scrutiny for one president Barack Obama when he was running. In fact, I remember just the opposite.”

In response to Carson’s argument, The Independent Journal Review has published several stories concerning President Obama that the media has either completely forgotten about, or covered rather mediocrely.

Two of the nine stories highlighted by IJReview actually have ties to The Yellowhammer State.

First, during a speech before an audience in Selma, Alabama, in 2007, Obama claimed that the civil rights march itself inspired his conception. But for those who know the date of Obama’s birth, the President would have already been three years old when the march occurred in 1965.

In 2008, The Washington Post reports that during another speech with civil rights activists in Selma, Alabama, Barrack Obama reported that through the generosity of the Kennedy family, his Kenyan father was able to travel to America and live on a student scholarship where he would eventually meet his mother from Kansas. The WP disproved this claim with evidence that the Kennedy family did not provide funding during the September 1959 airlift of 81 Kenyan students. The support for the program was given nearly a year later, in 1960. Eventually an Obama spokesperson, Bill Burton, acknowledged Obama’s mistake and make the correction that the Kenya student program, “started 48 years ago, not 49 years ago as Obama has mistakenly suggested in the past.”

Though Politico updated the original article and its headline, it still says it stands by the story’s reporting.

Dr. Carson has begun polling in the lead in several early states, surpassing former frontrunner Donald Trump, and even beating Hillary Clinton in a head-to-head matchup in some swing states.

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— John James (@john_james_20) August 19, 2015