WHITE
HOUSE
Carson: White House wanted me to apologize for 'offending' Obama
Published April 15, 2014
FoxNews.com
FILE: March 8, 2014:
Possible GOP presidential candidate Ben Carson at the Conservative Political
Action Conference, in Oxon Hill, Md.REUTERS
Conservative sage Dr. Ben Carson is claiming
the White House was offended by his now-famous keynote address at the 2013
National Prayer Breakfast and asked at the time for an apology call to
President Obama -- which he didn’t make.
The anecdote is found in Carson’s upcoming
book “One Nation: What We Can All Do to
Save America’s Future.”
Carson, who became a conservative sensation
after the address, was highly critical of the direction of the country though
he never blamed the president, who was sitting just a few feet away.
“He did not appear to be hostile or angry,”
Carson wrote in the book.
“But within a matter of minutes after the
conclusion of the program, I received a call from some of the prayer breakfast
organizers saying that the White House was upset and requesting that I call the
president and apologize for offending him. I said that I did not think that he
was offended and that I didn’t think that such a call was warranted.”
The passage was verified Tuesday by publisher
Sentinel, a division of Penguin Group (USA).
Carson, a former director of pediatric
neurosurgery at Johns Hopkins University, also suggests in the book he has no
plans to run for president in 2016 unless called by God. However, he has placed
third in two recent straw polls and is being courted by the well-funded
National Draft Ben Carson for President Committee.