A just-released documentary about the best-selling author and rising GOP star Ben Carson is getting rave reviews from conservative activists — a strong sign that the renowned neurosurgeon is seriously looking at running for the GOP presidential nomination in 2016.
The hour-long film "A Breath of Fresh Air: A New Prescription for America," airs every night this week on
Newsmax TV at 9 p.m. and midnight Eastern Time, Monday through Friday.
You can tune into Newsmax TV on DIRECTV 349 and DISH Ch. 223, on NewsmaxTV.com, or via the free Newsmax app on any smartphone. [Find out how to get
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Already the film has drawn nationwide media attention with Carson's presidential boosters urging him to run and clean up Washington with their "Run, Ben, Run" campaign.
"The money behind Carson, combined with his bootstrapping life story and his success in medicine, show that he's not someone who should be so easily written off," National Journal observed in a story about the new film. "He's by no means a front-runner, but that doesn't mean he won't be a contender."
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The documentary from Armstrong Williams Productions opened with illustrations of the Founding Fathers, pointing out that three of them were physicians.
"The Founding Fathers were Republicans, in the sense that they believed that serving as a government representative was a civic duty, not a license for unlimited power," the documentary's narrator says.
"Is it necessary to have spent one's whole life in politics, doing nothing else productive than running for office?"
Carson grew up in poverty in Detroit, and became acclaimed in the medical community for his success in separating conjoined twins. In 2008 he was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civilian honor.
Today he is a professor emeritus of neurosurgery, oncology, plastic surgery, and pediatric surgery at the Johns Hopkins Children's Center.
He has become an outspoken critic of President Barack Obama, criticizing his Obamacare program and administration efforts to trample on civil liberties.
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Dr. Carson, a frequent commentator on Newsmax TV and Fox News, writes a weekly column and has authored five best-selling books. His latest,
"One Nation: What We Can All Do to Save America's Future," reached No. 1 on The New York Times list of nonfiction books and remained in the top 10 for eight months.
Carson made headlines with his keynote address at the National Prayer Breakfast in February 2013 when, standing just a few feet from Obama, he criticized liberal government, calling for a return to a culture of personal responsibility, free markets, and upward mobility.
The "A Breath of Fresh Air" narrator describes that event: "Carson stood by his prescription for America, and his critique of bloated, ineffective and ultimately tyrannical government overreach. From a surgeon with such renown and gravitas to directly contradict the reigning dogma about healthcare was pure heresy in the eyes of his critics. But to others, it sounded a lot like common sense."
As Carson states in the documentary: "I would like to see the government stop trying to regulate every aspect of our lives."
Instead of Obamacare, Carson backs free-market approaches, including health savings accounts, which allow people to use tax-free dollars to pay for health expenses, viewers of the documentary learn. "Bring it into the free market: that makes it work much better," he says.
He also asserts that the United States should fight "the plague of radical Islamic extremism," adding that if political leaders don't "micromanage" military leaders and let them "use their talents," then "we can take care of this problem pretty quickly."
Carson recalls in the documentary the tremendous influence Ronald Reagan had in shaping his views:
"I used to be a rather radical left-wing person. And I started listening to him, and I started listening to the things he was saying, and they made so much sense. And I actually began to think about the world in a very different way."
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Armstrong Williams, a television station owner and media strategist who oversaw the documentary's production, has been friends with Carson since the 1990s, when Carson appeared on one of Williams' talk show.
Note: Watch Ben Carson's story "A Breath of Fresh Air: A New Prescription for America" airs every night this week on
Newsmax TV at 9 p.m. and midnight Eastern Time, Monday through Friday — on DIRECTV 349 and DISH 223, on Newsmax TV.com, or via the free Newsmax app on any smartphone. [Find out how to get Newsmax TV on your cable system ––
Go Here Now.]