Sam Harris has made something of a career out of saying provocative things that upset both the religious right and the anti-imperialist left, but he couldn't be accused of outright trolling, until perhaps today.

On his blog, Harris' longtime foe PZ Meyers noted a section of a recent interview where Harris actually supports a Ben Carson presidency over Noam Chomsky. Harris, chatting with neocon Doug Marry, speaks highly of Carson's approach to fighting "jihadists":

Given a choice between Noam Chomsky and Ben Carson, in terms of the totality of their understanding of what’s happening now in the world, I’d vote for Ben Carson every time. Ben Carson is a dangerously deluded religious imbecile.…the fact that he is a candidate for president is a scandal…but at the very least he can be counted on to sort of get this one right. He understands that jihadists are the enemy.

Ben Carson, it should be noted, is a climate change denier, a pathological liar, an evolution skeptic, an Egyptian pyramid truther, and a noted plagiarist.

Meyers could hardly contain his indignation:

Yeah, that’s right. Ben Carson is a religious imbecile, but according to Harris, he’s better qualified than some damn leftist on the basis of his foreign policy expertise, which consists of hating Islam almost as much as Sam Harris does.

Just think about that. Sam Harris listens to Ben Carson and thinks he makes sense on Middle East policy.

One can expect Harris will respond in due time.

Listen to the entire radio interview between Harris and the British writer Doug Murray.