Ben Carson Claims His Humiliating Oreo Gaffe Was All Part of the Game

Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson had a rough Tuesday. Now, he’s blaming his gaffe(s) on a radical Democratic conspiracy to make him look like an utter imbecile.

On Wednesday morning, Carson sat down for an interview with Fox Business to clear the air after his dismal showing before the House Financial Services Committee. At the hearing, he failed to identify the acronym for “Real Estate Owned” properties; instead, for some reason, he thought Rep. Katie Porter was asking him about Oreo cookies. Given this man is in charge of American public housing, the flub (his second of the day) was widely reported and roundly criticized. It was bad, but also, it was good.

Then, in an attempt to turn the tables, Carson hopped on the propagandist airwaves to claim his mistake was actually totally reasonable because Porter and the Democrats were out to get him from the start. Citing Saul Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals—specifically Rule No. 5, “Ridicule is man’s most potent weapon,” and Rule No. 13, “Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it”—Carson told enraged host Stuart Varney that the Democrats “didn’t even know that they were being used.”

Carson’s not wrong, he’s just not citing the correct rule. Porter was clearly deploying Rule No. 3: “Whenever possible go outside the expertise of the enemy.”