Republican presidential candidate Dr. Ben Carson argued that mosques should be placed under surveillance “if there is justifiable cause” and that former President Bill Clinton is “fair game” for criticism on Monday’s broadcast of the Fox News Channel’s “O’Reilly Factor.”
Carson, in response to a question on mosque surveillance, stated, “I grew up in Detroit, where there are a lot of Muslims, and, you know, the vast, vast majority of them are good, decent people. I think Teddy Roosevelt put it best in 1907, when he said, we’re a country of immigrants. Everybody is welcome from any race, from any religion, as long as they want to be Americans. As long as they accept our values and beliefs, and our laws. And that’s the way I feel about it, and I think that’s the way most Americans feel about it. Now, what we have to be careful of is allowing ourselves to be duped by political correctness and say, well, you know, we can’t even investigate these people because that’s racial profiling or religious profiling, you know, that’s what they’re counting on. They’re counting on us being that silly. But, we have to be smarter than that, and obviously if there is justifiable cause, if there’s suspicion, human intelligence is your first leg, you go in there, you listen, you survey for a while, and if it seems more suspicious, you put in your electronic equipment, or whatever else you need.”
The discussion then turned to whether or not Carson thinks criticizing Bill Clinton is fair. Carson said, “Every past president is fair game. The fact that one of them happens to be married to a presidential candidate doesn’t change that.”
When asked what he thought of Bill Clinton’s past conduct, Carson answered, “Well, yeah, my main problem with it, is that I saw innocent little kids, you know, as pediatric neurosurgeon I dealt with a lot of children, and I see them becoming coarser and wanting to know what certain things are that they’re hearing about on television, things that they would have never known about as kids before. And a certain innocence disappears from our society. I’m sorry to see that happen, and I’m sorry that it was because one of our presidents.”
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