After Gideon Resnick of the Daily Beast pointed out that Carson’s story of attempting to stab a friend when he was 14 has evolved over the years, Carson said the story changed because reporters “record it in different ways.”
According to Carson, the retelling of the story is a like a game of “telephone.”
“For one thing, it happened 50 years ago — half a century ago,” Carson explained. “For another thing, when people record what I’ve said, they record it in different ways. When you’ve got something from 50 years ago that’s told by many different people, it’s sort of like the party game where you whisper to people sitting in a circle. When it gets to the original person, it’s very different.”
The problem for Carson is that the accounts of his story have varied depending upon which of the books he personally authored someone is reading.
As Resnick noted, Carson wrote in “Think Big: Unleashing Your Potential for Excellence,”: “One afternoon when I was fourteen, I argued with a friend named Bob. Pulling out a camping knife, I lunged at my friend. The steel blade struck his metal belt buckle and snapped.”
Depending upon which book of Carson’s you are reading, Carson ran away afterward in shame, his best friend ran away in fear, it happened in two different homes or at school, and either a pocketknife or a camping knife was used. In yet another version, the knifing victim is identified only as a classmate instead of his good friend “Bob.”
Each recounting does lead to Carson finding God afterwards.
NFTOS
STAFF WRITER
