The editors of the Wall Street Journal: "Ben Carson for President."

Another egregious example of GOP types who gush with embarrassing enthusiasm in the presence of a black person who says some conservative things.

I have 2 problems with Ben Carson:

1. He had the opportunity to speak at a prayer breakfast with President Obama alongside him on the dais, and he used it to deliver a political lecture. I don't think that's right. Whatever your opinion of Obama's politics or the process by which he became President — which included plenty of embarrassing enthusiasm in the presence of a black person— he is the President, and — especially at a formal occasion like this — he deserves the respect embodied in the office of the President.

2. Ben Carson read a speech. It was a good speech — though, as noted above, it was not appropriate for the occasion — but it was a written speech. Carson is a pediatric neurosurgeon, not an economist or a  health care policy wonk or a speechwriter. We don't know what contribution he made to the writing of the speech. I don't know how that speech got into his hands, but once he had that position on the dais at the prayer breakfast, those hands were very valuable hands in which to put a speech. Who is the speechwriter? If it was Carson himself, alone, I'd be extremely impressed. And extremely surprised.