Fox Analyst: Ben Carson Should Apologize to Obama

It's a well-known fact that Fox News is not a big fan of President Barack Obama or his policies. But in a sharp turn of events, Cal Thomas, an analyst for the conservative-leaning cable station, urged Dr. Benjamin Carson, the celebrated black neurosurgeon, to refrain from taking victory laps after issuing sharp criticisms of the president's policies at last week's National Prayer Breakfast.

Our politics have become so polarized and corrupted that a president of the United States cannot even attend an event devoted to drawing people closer to God and bridge partisan and cultural divides without being lectured about his policies.

Last Thursday at the National Prayer Breakfast in Washington, D.C., Dr. Ben Carson, director of Pediatric Neurosurgery at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, and a 2008 recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom, broke with a 61-year-old tradition and publicly disagreed with some of the president's policies, such as "ObamaCare," taxation and the national debt. Disclosure: I have attended this event since 1971 and host a dinner the night before for members of the media.

Several in the audience of 3,000 applauded Carson's remarks, which must have made the president feel even more uncomfortable.

I am no fan of the president's policies, but the National Prayer Breakfast is billed as one of the few nonpolitical events in a very political city. Each year, the co-chairs, one Democrat and one Republican from either the House or Senate, put aside their political differences, as they do in weekly gatherings, to pray for the nation's leaders.

Whether this is an attempt by the right to overhaul its faltering image, Thomas makes a good point. There are plenty of venues to play politics. The National Prayer Breakfast was not one of them.

Read more and hear Dr. Carson's remarks at Fox News.

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