I wasn’t going to do an Elizabeth Warren post today. Really.
But in my in-box was a link to this story at The Boston Herald, Elizabeth Warren shuts door on Herald’s inquiry (video at the link):
Senate hopeful Elizabeth Warren, in a sequel to an awkward on-camera encounter this week about her claim to Native American heritage, bolted from a campaign event yesterday, refusing to answer a Herald reporter’s questions about the controversy.
Moments after giving the keynote speech at the Young Democrats of Massachusetts convention, Warren and her handlers hustled out a rear exit of the SEIU 1199 offices in Dorchester. She climbed into the passenger side of an SUV and closed the door as a Herald reporter asked her a question and a photographer rolled video….
Yesterday’s SUV exit evoked memories of the great escape U.S. Sen. John Kerry pulled off in the summer of 2010, when he slammed a car door on a pack of newshounds eager to know how he would pony up the Massachusetts taxes on a $7 million yacht he’d docked in Rhode Island.
This whole Cherokee high cheekbones, Aunt Bea, my mother told me so, I stand by it even though the evidence is otherwise, I’m 1/32 Cherokee until I’m not, I never used it professionally until you found the AALS directory, it never came up at Harvard prior to my hire except now it turns out that the Women’s Law Journal called me a “woman of color” in 1993 … this whole thing makes no sense.
If Warren had nothing to hide, she’d just call a press conference and answer all the questions reporters had until the last question was asked and answered.
She’d authorize and demand that Harvard Law release not only her employment file and all references to her alleged minority status, but also the entire hiring file including everything about how it was she was recruited. She’d also demand release the files of all persons and committees tasked with increasing the diversity of Harvard Law’s faculty.
You’d think Warren would want to put the issue to rest, as even supporters like Ed Schlutz and Alan Colmes are saying she needs to do.
When questions were raised about Scott Brown’s military service, he authorized the release of his records. Scott Brown was not running from anything. Elizabeth Warren apparently is.
Something is not right here. Call it a gut feeling or a nose for trouble. There’s something out there.
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Comments
Well, we know one thing for sure:
Warren is no “Indian Giver” but a “non-Indian Taker.”
Was it a lie or was it a mistake?
Mistakes can be forgiven. Lies, not so much. It speaks to character, something this election is becoming more and more about. Well, that and the economy.
Our arrogant liberal betters, rulers or want to be rulers, do not need to tell us about their backgrounds: Obama and Warren. All we know about them for sure is that they lie.
It’s easy to speculate, but given her past performance my best guess is her campaign staff has advised she avoid any further non-scripted discussion on the matter. Yet, since even the Boston Globe, the Globe!, has started it’s own line of soft attack, she may eventually have no choice but to answer to the few key issues. Can she prove it, and if not will she apologize? And, did she or did she not use it as leverage, even if she honestly believed it was family lore? The first question has been disproven by even liberal leaning media.
Obviously, her campaign strategy is to try and flip this into a war-on-women theme. Most recently describing it, in so many words, as a direct attack on her, her mother, and her grandmother makes it pretty clear. Nothing like bringing up generations of women to animate the theme….especially without suggesting any fathers or grandfathers are being impugned.
I wonder how long the unenrolled (independent) voters in the state will continue to believe she has resolved the issue to their liking. No doubt the registered Democrats are satisfied she has, or perhaps they don’t see her use of quotas as an abuse.
Maybe we should call her Princess Running Bear (as in nekked).
Plus, AN SUV…?!?!?
ZOMG…!!! Could this be any more inept…?
That’s the SUV she got after selling her Beemer and neglecting to pay the municipal excise tax on the transaction.
“Taxes for thee, but not for me!”
Is the Brown campaign sending someone dressed as an Indian Chief to her campaign events yet? If not, they need to.
Wicked! But I like it…
Watching Ms Warren fail to produce a single fact supporting her claim has become uncomfortable viewing. She is embarrassing herself. I feel dirty watching. So I pose a question to the Professor, “Are there consequences for falsely claiming minority status to gain favorable consideration for employment opportunities?” Surely they is some federal or state code dealing with this issue.
Has anyone thought of a plan to heavily sedate this person and determine if in fact she has SOME gray matter, between the ears?
Itsa’ damn shame she wasn’t named Penelope, by her mommy. ‘Cause then she could claim to be an Indian Head Penny..
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Professor, your analysis seems to assume that Warren has some guilty knowledge (Which is not the same thing as feeling guilty) and structures her behavior accordingly.
It is at least equally possible that simple arrogance explains her actions. As in, “Who do these people think they are to be asking questions that do not interest ME?”
Some mix of the two things is also possible. What is not possible is that Warren truly does not understand why her lies have become an issue. Even a Harvard professor can’t be that stupid.
I can sympathise with Ms. Warren, up to a point. But she used her family legend, without making any effort to verify it before checking that little box that she must have known would ring a giant gong with university administrators. And they took it from there automatically, with no effort on her part. They cashed in on ‘diversity’ credits, likely scoring actual cash in grants from government diversity-mongers and racial bean-counters. And she, and her career, went innocently (wink, nod) along for the ride, fetching up touted as Harvard’s single Native American mugamug in her department. And until foolishly entering a publicly contested Senate election campaign, fully confident that (wink, nod) Harvard’s diversity-mongers and bean-counters would solemnly swear that her dazzling academic prowess at law was the ONLY reason she’d come on board as one of their Professors.
I would emphasize this: It is one thing to continue the family lore through storytelling. We all tell stories that we don’t expect to be the verified by the listener. It is quite another to use your “belief” in making official, legal applications for employment or study. In that case you expect that the veracity might be checked at some point. And when it turns out not proven, or ambiguous at best, you have limited choices. Criticizing those who question it is not a valid choice for someone who wants the confidence of their electorate.
Her responses so far seem to suggest she didn’t expect the veracity to be checked nor that she feels any remorse. Or else, she and her campaign are really amateurs in politics. Either is not good in the long run.
How do we know that she really has family lore of some high cheekboned Indian heritage? Cuz she said so? Cuz she had some recipes in Pow Wow Chow? Those were not even authentic recipes and they were plagiarized. So, they stand as mute testimony to the absence of any genuine Indian heritage. The least she could’ve come up with was a recipe for dog fritters. I think Warren planned out a course of action, pursued it, and engaged in other action (bow wow chow) to provide herself with a “see! I’m not lying! I am Injun!” cover. She nev anticipated that anybody would delve deep and check. I know what she’s saying she has, but I don’t believe that there is any lore. I think the whole thing is a lie to provide cover for using affirmative action to get ahead. Show me the friend or the family member who has come out and is supporting her story.
@juba doobai – Questioning whether her fable is real or not is nitpicking to me. You expect a “story” to have fabrications and exaggerations. What is the remedy? Do you want to subpoena every one in her family? And would you not expect them to take her side? Good grief.
It is more important whether she used it in circumstances constrained by law. Regardless of how much she “believed”, under those conditions she has obligations to verify. Even a non-Harvard lawyer likely knows that…….(sarcasm).
I may be questioning. You have already decided with your use of “fable.” In case you don’t know, let me enlighten you. A fable, though instructive, is NOT a true story..
Are you unaware that “subpoena” is a legal term or are you just ignorant of it? Let us say that her family were subpoenaed and required to testify, that’s the usual sequence of events, have you ever heard of “perjury” and “sworn oaths”? Are you acquainted with her family that you imply they lack any sense of honor?
By the way, your second paragraph goes nowhere. Both Penn and Harvard listed her as Indian even though the use of that minority status was circumscribed by law. The questions then are given the slenderness of the proof, why did she claim the status, and why did those who hired her not make explicit that she fell short of the requirements of the law. Self-interest on both sides precluded any such conversation, IMO.
I use the term fable for a simple reason: She has steadfastly claimed it was verbal history and her team’s evidence or proof has been refuted by a large number of sources, native included.
Outside all your other words and insults (ignorant?), what was your original point in questioning whether there was actually a verbal history/lore that should be verified?? There is circumstantial evidence that she thought herself to have that particular ancestry. But even if an investigation found otherwise, how would that change the legal aspect whatsoever?
Maybe running from being outed as an affirmative action hire who used somebody else’s ethnicity to benefit from the affirmative action. She has the brains, and from all accounts, she’s a good teacher. Her means, ah, there’s the rub. She got ahead by any means necessary. Would Penn and Harvard have recruited her if she hadn’t been labeled minority? Questionable. If she’s outed fully, she will finally knows what it means to be a minority and have folks look at you askance for being where you are or tell you how articulate you are and be amazed that you have the nous. She’ll know what it is to have the taint of AA hanging over her head. Anybody in their right mind would run from that.
“How do we know that she really has family lore of some high cheekboned Indian heritage?”
Good point … some families may have inaccurate lore, but usually I’d think it is an exaggeration of actual facts, or perhaps tagged as a rumor. But there is zero basis in fact for Warren’s claims. And her lore would have had to have begun before 1950 (to fit Warren’s claims), when there was little populist reason to invent such lore.
But Elizabeth had a very big motivation to invent the lore.
Agree with Prof on the “gut feeling” but its also informed observation. Lets face it…we have all seen how reasonable people respond to issues like this. And weve seen how not so innocent folks respond as well.
Its almost a reminder of the different stages of grief as politicians particularly basocally grieve over the situation they face. Denial. Anger. Bargaining etc. To those obvious and identifiable stages..Let me add a common step: The outlandish explanations. Similar to a teenager creating an overcomplicated “story” when “the dog ate my homework” wont suffice.
Pathetic really. Like the adage reminds us..its not the wrongdoing that is the problem..its the attempts to coverup the issue.
^^The motivations at work are difficult to nail down because she wont say really. No different maybe than a writer claiming to be born in Kenya perhaps. Its an obvious use of stretching the truth to satisfy some need I suppose. Maybe its dollars and cents. Maybe its some personal need to imagine a more “popular” personna.
But in any event..it aint normal.
I wasn’t going to do an Elizabeth Warren post today. Really.
I wasn’t going to read an Elizabeth Warren post today. Really.
I may have more later on Progressives, and their:
-Stolen Valor
-Creating victim classes for the sole purpose of stealing any benefits designed to help them.
-exposing their antipathy of minority classes by treating the noun used to define said class as a pejorative
But, maybe not…
My guess is that she and her campaign are still in the “if we ignore this it’ll go away” mode, totally not getting that it’s just way too late for that. And, it’s a new world, a world in which she can’t get away with things like Teddy got away with for 50+ years mainly because she’s not a Kennedy.
1. Something is not right here. Call it a gut feeling or a nose for trouble. There’s something out there.
Warren strikes me as crazy. Like others, I have spent time wondering what goes through her mind. That’s tempting but beside the point wrt the election.
Per our host, the point is what else may be out there about her. I’ve commented that when you see one cockroach, there likely are more.
2. When conservatives start getting mad about the Cherokee issue, we begin shifting to ground of the opposition’s choosing. The Left enjoys our anger; they can’t stand our mockery.
@gs – I am not aware of many conservatives who give a rat’s a** whether Warren indeed has Cherokee ancestry. But many, and many independents and libertarians, do care a good deal whether there was illegitimate use for gain, deliberate or not. The witch hunts for hypocrisy are all the rage these days for all types of political persuasions. So, until the hypocrisy is addressed HEAD ON, the left cannot get any traction to reverse it. I have progressive friends in MA who cringe at how poorly it has been handled, but have not left her side. Yet. Key the cringe-reaction is the trope about the war-on-women. Not credible even to many progressives in this case.
This could be something…..She just changed her status on Palefacebook
LOL
I seem to see a pattern here …
PAUL KRUGMAN, NEW YORK TIMES: This is hard to get people to do, much better, obviously, to build bridges and roads and healthcare clinics and schools. But my proposed, I actually have a serious proposal which is that we have to get a bunch of scientists to tell us that we’re facing a threatened alien invasion, and in order to be prepared for that alien invasion we have to do things like build high-speed rail. And the, once we’ve recovered, we can say, “Look, there were no aliens.”
But look, I mean, whatever it takes because right now we need somebody to spend, and that somebody has to be the U.S. government.
Warren was driven (by E.T.) to claim Cherokee ancestry because the Cherokee didn’t have a convenient Pocahontas to take the job at Harvard. She was filling a driving need to get the Cherokee better representation .. or something.
Could it be that Professor Warren didn’t check into the stories of her Indian heritage because she knew they were just stories, and wouldn’t hold up? Atticus Finch, who wasn’t a law professor, taught his children to never ask a question in cross examination unless they first knew the answer. Elizabeth didn’t ask because she didn’t want to know if the stories weren’t true or because she knew she didn’t want to know the truth.
Interesting that Penn and Harvard left the minority status thing to their staff members. Unless they have those staff members sign a form stating that they are, in fact, the status they are claiming, pushing the responsibility onto the staff member seems dubious. Somebody should have sent Warren a memo which said something to the effect of “Elizabeth: We are filling out our Federal Diversity Report, and we have you down as a Native American. Are you a Native American, and do you have documentation to verify your claim?” Otherwise, we have a big game of pretend.
I guess we do have a game of pretend, and don’t us nobodies know we aren’t supposed to be asking questions of our superiors?*
*I can’t recall, but didn’t John Kenneth Galbraith refer to his university in Ontario as the worst in the English speaking world. When somebody challenged him on that his response was something about they didn’t speak English at Oklahoma State University. Any “native” Oklahomans out there will to defend dear Elizabeth?
“Could it be that Professor Warren didn’t check into the stories of her Indian heritage because she knew they were just stories, and wouldn’t hold up? ” — what if she did check into them and found no evidence? Does she seem like the type of person who would not look into it?
At a minimum to me, she seems like the type of person who would have a high interest (sensitivity?) in all aspects of her biography and CV. I find that true of nearly every academic with ambition in over 30 years of contact. So, it is especially hard to believe she never once knew she was “officially” listed as a minority, as has been claimed. And if she did know, and if she did ponder it in the least as an expert (?) in law, it is logical to think she either would have researched it or discussed with any of the administrations that listed her as such.
The election won’t hinge on this issue. In fact, it’s now become a distraction. Scott Brown should focus on giving people a reason to vote FOR him and stay away from this completely.
@PhillyGuy, to you it may be a trivial issue as it is to some diehard Democrats and liberal “unenrolled” types I know in MA. But to many others in the state who aren’t fully committed to either candidate, it is troubling. For some the worry is more about her and her team’s ineptitude in handling the matter. To others the issue of whether she was intentionally leveraging a quota/affirmative action opportunity is very real and worthy of a full reckoning.
We all know that liberals lie day in and day out, as it is part of the inherent chacacter trait. To them, it’s as natural as getting up in the morning.. But with that being said, Elliazabeth Warren has dug herself into a deep lying hole, and refuses to admit her orchestrated intentional deception for whatever political reason, aka the lie about claiming Native American Indian ancestry.
So instead of coming clean, she doubles down, like most people cornered with the truth. Of course, her admittance of her lies would solidfy her character as distrustful, and would forever tarnish her public image, which is almost a death nell for politicians, so she refuses to do that. She actually thinks that she can get away with it, because she is a Democrat. She, like most of her ilk, and all politicians specifically, live in a world of lies and deceit, among other undesireable traits, and forever weave their web to the point of no return. This is the never ending political story of politicaians on every side of the political spectrum. Politicians, especially liberal Democratic politicians, cannot help themselves.
Unfortunately this is not the first, nor the last we will be hearing about.
I rewrote this post, because I wanted to make some additional points-
We all know that liberals lie day in and day out, as it is part of the inherent character trait. To them, it’s as natural as getting up in the morning.. But with that being said, Elizabeth Warren has dug herself into a deep lying hole, and refuses to admit her orchestrated intentional deception for whatever political reason, aka the lie about claiming Native American Indian ancestry.
So instead of coming clean, she doubles down, like most people cornered with the truth. And why, because to people with weak internal character traits thus have no selflessness, integrity, honor, and humility that would enable them to be forth right about their mistakes in life, and the lure and lust for, and of, power and the elitist upper class life style of prestige and special privileges is an all to powerful intoxicating drug to them, and their defensive reaction to losing all of it is all to typical reaction, especially among the liberal politicians. Thus of course her admittance of her lies would solidify her character as distrustful, and would forever tarnish her public image, which is almost a death knell for politicians, so she refuses to do that. She actually thinks that she can get away with it, because she is a Democrat. She, like most of her ilk, and all politicians specifically, live in a world of lies and deceit, among other undesirable traits, and forever weave their web to the point of no return. This is the never ending political story of politicians on every side of the political spectrum. Politicians, especially liberal Democratic politicians, cannot help themselves.
Unfortunately this is not the first, nor the last we will be hearing about.
Since we and they all know they are all lying to everyone, about everything, all the time, why do you even pause to consider that “character” means anything to these people?
The question is, how would we know if they ever told the truth?
I can claim feel like an African-American, Hispanic today. Who is going to prove me wrong? Then what is to stop me from claiming to feel like Japanese-American female tomorrow? Who is going to prove me wrong? And what will prevent me from claiming to feel like Martian-Native American tomorrow?
If you tell me I don’t “feel this way” you are a racist, sexist, paternalistic, zionist, eurocentric homophobe!
Either there is “truth” or there is not. If there isn’t then I can claim I feel anything. But when idiots go around touting blond-haired, blue-eyed, anglos as “Native Americans” they do disservice to everyone and demonstrate their own stupidity.
It is doubtful that Lizzie ever went to the bathroom on a reservation. Yet several over-educated morons accepted her claim without so much as a basic double-take! Truly stupid in the most basic sense of the word…