Maybe it is brain surgery?
President-elect Donald Trump last week announced retired brain surgeon and former presidential contender Dr. Ben Carson as his nominee to lead the Office of Housing and Urban Development.
Carson is “a distinguished national leader who overcame his troubled youth in the inner city of Detroit to become a renowned neurosurgeon who served as the director of pediatric neurosurgery at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Maryland,” Trump’s transition team said in a statement announcing the nomination.
That’s certainly the kind of experience one looks for when hiring for a position that oversees low-income housing programs and works to keep people facing foreclosure in their homes. By the way, the next reporter to be hired at Banker & Tradesman is going to have a doctorate in particle physics.
As has been noted by media outlets and voters alike since the announcement, Carson has no experience with housing policy – in fact has no experience with government at all – and was originally reluctant to take on a role in Trump’s administration, noting himself that he lacked experience. And yet he ran for president, which one might assume is a more arduous role than secretary of HUD.
Perhaps not. Perhaps crafting policy and overseeing its implementation is more difficult than running the entire country. It might even be more difficult than brain surgery!
After all, when one is operating on a patient’s brain, if the surgery goes poorly, only one person dies. Bad policy and budget cuts to crucial housing programs may result in the deaths of far more people. Perhaps that’s a little extreme – but it certainly will result in unnecessary suffering and trauma for our nation’s most vulnerable residents.
It has been inaccurately reported that Carson grew up in public housing in Detroit. In fact, Carson did not live in the projects – he spent some of his youth in subsidized housing, which is probably a distinction without much difference – but his familiarity with the urban poor is being touted as qualifying him for the role of secretary. Never mind that he gained that experience nearly 60 years ago and much has changed since then, and that as a respected neurosurgeon at Johns Hopkins in Baltimore, he may have operated on the urban poor, but he could certainly no longer count himself among its members.
Still, this appointment could be construed as the president-elect fulfilling one of his campaign promises: Despite his failed bid for the presidency, Carson is not a Washington insider. There probably exists a candidate for the position who isn’t a career politician but does actually have some experience with housing issues, but let’s not split hairs. Carson is who we’ve got, and who we’ve got to deal with.
Here’s hoping Carson has a wide and flexible mind, the ability to ask questions and truly hear the answers (unlike the president-elect). A preeminent neurosurgeon is clearly not a stupid man; there is something to be said for intellect regardless of where it is directed. Prove us wrong, Ben, and make us proud.
