It turns out that Carson opposed going to war in Afghanistan after 9/11. Called on to explain this position, he said that he didn’t advocate doing nothing, but thought President Bush should use “the bully pulpit.”

Use the bully pulpit in response to 9/11? Carson has got to be kidding. As Marco Rubio patiently explained, Afghanistan was al Qaeda’s “operating space.” And the Taliban government flatly refused to do anything to change this even after its ally Pakistan tried to persuade it to (not that we should have relied on the Taliban in any case).

Carson defended his view by saying that we need to be “smart,” not just “muscular.” This sounds like the Democrats and their “smart power” mantra — an excuse for inaction that has proved ruinous.

In any case, it would have been stupid not to have toppled the Taliban after 9/11. Anyone who doesn’t understand this is unfit to be commander-in-chief.