Kenneth Kilgo, longtime West Point mayor, dies at 61
Kenneth Kilgo, who served as the Town of West Point, Ala. mayor for the past 12 years died early Monday morning. According to Warriors for Kenneth on Facebook, he passed away after going into kidney failure Sunday having had sepsis. He passed away at 1:30 a.m. at Huntsville Hospital. “The City of Cullman extends its condolences to the family, friends and colleagues of West Point Mayor Kenneth Kilgo. Kenneth was very active in civic affairs and took his position as a public servant seriously. He was a powerful influence for good in the growth and progress of the town of West Point, where he served as mayor for many years,” the City of Cullman Municipal Government posted on Facebook.
Can-do campaign biographies: There’s often more to the story
For most presidential candidates, a compelling personal history is an essential item in the campaign tool kit. Think Hillary Rodham Clinton and her campaign statements about fighting for women. Marco Rubio and his biography of the immigrant family that made good. Carly Fiorina and her “secretary to CEO” career path. Ben Carson and his up-by-the-bootstraps persona. For an electorate hungering for authenticity, a strong back story matters. But, just as tales at the dinner table sometimes get embellished, so do stories on the campaign trail. Blame human nature, fuzzy memory or political calculation. In any event, “if you’re going to err, you are probably going to err on the side of advancing your own cause — and that’s true for everybody,” says Stanley Renshon, a political psychologist at New York University. As Donald Trump wrote in one his books, “A little hyperbole never hurts.” Some candidate narratives are rock solid. Others fall apart on closer inspection. And many fall somewhere in between: a little bit cock-eyed or requiring the addition or subtraction of a key detail or two. Questions about a biography can be telling to voters, Renshon says. “If your biography is suspect, and who you say you are needs to be revised frequently,” he says, “then how are we going to be tell whether or not, when you say you are going to do something for us, that you actually will wind up doing that?” A closer look at some of the tales told by the campaign class of 2016 — and the back story to those back stories. HILLARY CLINTON Clinton re-raised some eyebrows this week with her Veterans Day tale of checking out whether she should join the Marines back in 1975. She was 27 that year, the year she married Bill Clinton and was working as a lawyer in Arkansas. She said the Marine recruiter “looks at me and he goes, ‘Um, how old are you?’ ” Clinton recalled. “And I said, ‘Well, I’m 26, I’ll be 27.’ And he goes, ‘Well, that’s kind of old for us.’ And then he says to me … ‘Maybe the dogs will take you,’ ” meaning the Army.” Why would Clinton, a lawyer, want to join the Marines? The idea was met with skepticism back in 1994, when she told the story as first lady, and again this week, when Republicans used it as an opportunity to rehash any number of alleged Clintonian embellishments. In response to a recent Associated Press query, her campaign said “her sole reason for visiting the recruitment center was to determine if there was a suitable opportunity for her to serve in some capacity. Her interest was sincere and it is insulting, but not surprising, that Republicans would attack her for this, too. “ The episode inevitably brought fresh reminders of Clinton’s 2008 tale about a harrowing visit to war-torn Bosnia in March 1996 as first lady. Clinton, during her 2008 run for president, recalled landing under sniper fire and running with her head down to get in her vehicle. She joked that one mantra around the Clinton White House was that “if the place was too small, too dangerous or too poor, send Hillary.” Security was very tight on Clinton’s goodwill tour to Bosnia, but officials said at the time that she took no extraordinary risks. Video of the visit shows her being greeted by a child on the tarmac and given a warm hug — not ducking and running. BEN CARSON The retired neurosurgeon and political neophyte has crept to the front of Republican polls with his inspirational tale of rising above an impoverished upbringing in Detroit and overcoming violent tendencies as a youth to reach the top ranks of medicine. His campaign has brought a cascade of questions about elements of his personal history. Carson last week clarified previous claims that he’d been offered a scholarship to West Point, saying that while he’d been told he could get an appointment to the school, he never applied. He also faced questions about his oft-repeated claim that he tried to stab a close friend as a teenager. Citing privacy concerns, his campaign has refused to name the person involved. In addition, police in Baltimore recently said they didn’t have enough information to verify Carson’s account of being held at gunpoint at a fast-food restaurant there more than 30 years ago. Carson said at the latest GOP debate that he’d faced lies about his life story and undergone unprecedented public scrutiny. “Thank you for not asking me what I said in the 10th grade. I appreciate that,” he told the moderators. CARLY FIORINA Fiorina loves to recount her tale of rising from a secretary position to the executive suite at Hewlett-Packard as a story that is “only possible in this nation and proves that every one of us has potential.” Her political action committee’s website is fromsecretarytoceo.com. This isn’t exactly a rags-to-riches story, though. Her father was a lawyer and her mother was an abstract painter. Fiorina’s stint as a secretary at a real estate brokerage firm came when the Stanford graduate quit law school after deciding it wasn’t for her. “I answered the phones. I typed. I filed,” she recounted in a 2001 commencement address at Stanford. “My parents were, understandably, quite concerned. This wasn’t exactly what they’d hoped for, for their Stanford graduate.” Eventually, she went off to Italy to teach English, and then decided to go to business school and get an MBA. From there she soon began her march up the management ladder. MARCO RUBIO Rubio’s bio on his Senate website says his parents “came to America from Cuba in 1956 and earned their way to the middle class working humble jobs — my father as a bartender in hotels and my mom as a maid, cashier and retail clerk.” That’s a revised version of the story Rubio related early on as a freshman senator, when he offered himself as “the son of exiles” who “understand what it
Rivals unmoved by Ben Carson’s complaints on scrutiny of his bio
Ben Carson says it’s time to move on from questions about the accuracy of his life story. But Tuesday’s Republican debate makes that unlikely, and some of his GOP rivals say such scrutiny is part of running for president. The retired neurosurgeon said Sunday that questions about discrepancies in his autobiography are distractions from “much more important” matters facing the country and that he’d discuss any “real” scandal uncovered about his past. He strongly disputed any dishonesty or wrongdoing. “Every single day, every other day or every week, you know, they’re going to come out with, ‘Well, you said this when you were 13,’ ” Carson said on CBS’ “Face the Nation” Sunday. “The whole point is to distract the populace, to distract me,” he added. Carson got no sympathy Monday from a pair of Republicans who are trailing him in the presidential polls and said they had endured years of personal scrutiny as governors. “We’re responsible for the personal stories we tell about our lives and we need to be asked about them,” New Jersey Gov. [Chris] Christie said about Carson on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.” Mike Huckabee, a former Arkansas governor, said when he heard Carson’s complaints about the media, “I’m thinking pal, you ain’t seen nothing yet.” “You know that if you run for office you’re going to be put through the sausage grinder,” Huckabee told MSNBC. Moving on, at least in the short term, is unlikely for Carson. The accuracy of his autobiography has dominated his campaign in the past few days, and more questions are likely during Tuesday’s debate. The intensified questioning reflects Carson’s transformation from political outsider to the top of the polls in the unsettled nomination fight, second only to billionaire developer Donald Trump. And in early-voting Iowa, some polls show Carson leading. Trump tried Sunday to keep the allegations alive. On several news shows, he mentioned examples from Carson’s autobiography, “Gifted Hands,” about Carson’s bad temper when he was young. Carson claimed that he tried to hit his mother with a hammer and unsuccessfully tried to stab someone. Several times, Trump quoted Carson as describing his younger self as having a “pathological” temper — and then demurred on his own opinion of Carson’s character and veracity. “I just don’t know. I mean, I’m not involved. I don’t really know,” Trump said on CNN’s “State of the Union.” Carson insists no other candidate has received the level of scrutiny that he has. Asked on NBC’s “Meet the Press” whether he is being scrutinized more than President Barack Obama and former President Bill Clinton, Carson replied: “Not like this. Not even close.” Republican Party chairman Reince Priebus criticized the intense questioning Monday, saying that while he considers candidate vetting by the media appropriate, “I do believe this is a totally, crazy obsession over incredible detail from 30 or 40 years ago.” “The fact is, you know, we wish the media would be just as obsessed with Hillary Clinton’s lies over the years,” Priebus said in an interview on NBC’s “Today” show. Scrutiny of one’s past is par for any major candidate for president. Obama’s citizenship was questioned, including by Trump, and the president later released a birth certificate showing he was born in Hawaii. Clinton’s marital dalliances were probed during the 1992 campaign. The Miami Herald staked out then-Sen. Gary Hart‘s townhouse in 1987 and caught him in an extramarital affair. Hillary Rodham Clinton, the front-runner for the Democratic presidential nomination, last month testified about the private email server she kept at her house and used for government business while she was secretary of state. Carson is a newcomer to presidential politics, so much about his life, career and published works are being raked over for the first time, and his longtime status as an American success story is being examined. Carson strongly disputed that there was any dishonesty intended. Gone Sunday was the anger he showed during a news conference on Friday, when the usually even-tempered Carson demanded that reporters explain why, in his opinion, Obama had not been subjected to the same level of scrutiny. “My job is to call you out when you’re unfair, and I’m going to continue to do that,” he said. “Gifted Hands” is central to much of the scrutiny. It tells the story of Carson’s rise from a childhood in inner-city Detroit to director of pediatric neurosurgery at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore. In it, he tells of trying to stab a close friend when he was a teenager. CNN reported it could not find friends or confidants to corroborate that story. Politico published a piece examining Carson’s claim of receiving a scholarship offer to attend the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. The Wall Street Journal said it could not confirm Carson’s anecdotes from his high school and college years. The academy does not offer scholarships, instead extending all expenses paid to students it admits. Carson never applied for admission. Last month, police in Baltimore said they didn’t have enough information to verify Carson’s account of being held at gunpoint at a fast-food restaurant there more than 30 years ago. In a GOP debate last month, Carson said it was “absolutely absurd” to say he had a formal relationship with the medical supplement company Mannatech. He is featured in the firm’s videos, including one from last year in which he credits its supplements with helping people restore a healthy diet. Republished with permission of the Associated Press.
GOP candidate Ben Carson backs off West Point scholarship claim
Republican White House hopeful Ben Carson was not offered a formal scholarship to the U.S. Military Academy at West Point as he wrote in his autobiography, his campaign said Friday. Carson, a newcomer to national politics, has developed a passionate following based in part on an inspirational personal story and devotion to Christian values. The only African-American in the Republican 2016 class, Carson grew up in inner-city Detroit and often speaks about his brushes with violence and poverty during his early years. His campaign on Friday sought to clarify a statement in his breakout book, “Gifted Hands,” in which he outlines his participation with the Reserve Officers’ Training Corps, commonly known as ROTC, while in high school. “I was offered a full scholarship to West Point,” Carson wrote in the 1996 book. “I didn’t refuse the scholarship outright, but I let them know that a military career wasn’t where I saw myself going. As overjoyed as I felt to be offered such a scholarship, I wasn’t really tempted.” Campaign spokesman Doug Watts said Carson was “the top ROTC student in the city of Detroit” and “was introduced to folks from West Point by his ROTC supervisors.” “They told him they could help him get an appointment based on his grades and performance in ROTC. He considered it but in the end did not seek admission,” Watts said. Students granted admission to West Point are said to earn appointments to the military academy, which comes with tuition, room and board and expenses fully paid, in exchange for five years of service in the Army after graduation. A West Point spokesman on Friday said the academy “cannot confirm whether anyone during that time period was nominated to West Point if they chose not to pursue completion of the application process.” The story was first reported on Friday by Politico. Republished with permission of The Associated Press.
Martha Roby: Next generation of military leaders
One of my favorite parts of serving in Congress is the honor and responsibility I have to nominate young men and women for an appointment to our nation’s military academies. Each year, my office conducts a rigorous process by which applicants are reviewed and interviewed by an independent panel of service academy alumni. Our service academies are some of the most prestigious institutions in the world. Appointments are highly sought after and require high academic, character and leadership standards. Those appointed must commit to serve in the military for a minimum of five years upon graduation. Once the panel has made its selections, I have the privilege of calling the students to personally inform them of their nomination to a U.S. military academy. It is an honor to be the first to thank these courageous students for their willingness to serve their country and to wish them the best on this exciting endeavor. Below are students who were nominated through my office and have received appointments to U.S. military academies for 2015. I join their families, teachers and friends in congratulating them on such a momentous accomplishment. Matthew Dunlap, Enterprise: U.S. Air Force Academy. Son of William J. Dunlap, student at the U.S. Air Force Academy Preparatory School. Alvaro Nicholas Flores, Ozark: West Point. Son of Alvaro and Kimberly Flores, student at Carroll High School Hunter Rowan Godwin, Dothan: West Point. Son of Joseph and Patricia Godwin, student at Providence Christian School. Jesse Cornelius Anthony Haggerty, IV, Eufaula: U.S. Air Force Academy. Son of Jesse and Angela Haggerty, student at the Lakeside School. Baxter J. Hodge, Montgomery: West Point. Son of Ray and Deana Hodge, student at Eastwood Christian School. Shawn N. Paris, Jr., Fort Rucker: U.S. Naval Academy. Son of Shawn and Jennifer Paris, student at Carroll High School. Leo Alfred Petters, Montgomery: U.S. Naval Academy. Son of Brian and Vicki Petters, student at Montgomery Catholic Preparatory School. Pearce Anthony Phinney, Prattville: U.S. Naval Academy. Son of Col. Todd and Sharon Phinney, student at Prattville Christian Academy. Jesse Ariel Ramire, Daleville: West Point. Son of Berny and Peta Ramirez, student at the Alabama School of Math and Science in Mobile. Again, I want to congratulate these students on this special achievement. If you or a someone you know is interested in knowing more about seeking a nomination to a military academy, please visit my website at https://roby.house.gov/serving-you/military-academy-nominations. Martha Roby represents Alabama’s 2nd Congressional District. She is in her third term.
