A number of readers forwarded me the link to an article about Scott Brown’s demand that Harvard correct its filings with the Labor Department to remove Elizabeth Warren’s listing as a Native American. Reader Tom wrote:
Professor:
Senator Brown’s now taking on HARVARD in his campaign. It’s become middle America vs. the Elites – pass the popcorn!
“She falsely described herself as a minority and some of the schools where she worked relied on that information to misrepresent the diversity of their faculty,” Brown said in a statement. “I call on Harvard President [Drew] Faust to immediately correct the record with the relevant federal agencies and uphold Harvard’s 400-year-old tradition of abiding by the truth.” . . . .
“Today, Brown shot back: “I’m highly offended that Elizabeth Warren would accuse me of attacking her family when I have not done nothing of the kind. To make that kind of wild and baseless charge is disturbing.”
Damn, he’s a good campaigner.
It was a very good article, giving Brown a fair shot at Harvard and Warren. I even received a call from a reporter for another newspaper requesting my comment about the Brown criticism of Harvard.
I saved the link to post later in the day, since I already had put up a post this morning, Elizabeth Warren listed as “woman of color” in Harvard student journal in 1993.
The original still is in Google Cache:
The Globe’s own search index shows the original title of the article:
But when I went to the link this afternoon just before 4 p.m., the url. directed to a post in which Boston Mayor Tom Menino was defending Warren!
Here’s the new headline and introductory text:
Mayor Menino criticizes focus on Elizabeth Warren’s heritage
On a day when Senator Scott Brown sought to fan further questions about Elizabeth Warren’s Native American heritage, Mayor Thomas M. Menino, who has not been shy about praising Brown, made clear he is fed up with the issue.
“I think she has come clean but nobody has let her off the hook,” Menino said. “It’s not relevant at all in the campaign. Let’s talk about the real issues: education, housing, crime. Those are the real issues we should be talking about. This is one of the issues that you [use to] try to divert as a candidate because you can’t deal with the real issues.” ….
The Globe went from a widely circulated post hammering Warren, to a post in which Warren vigorously was defended and Brown derided for raising a non-issue — without any notice to readers of what had happened.
As of this writing (4 p.m. Eastern) the post had been shared several hundred times, most of which almost certainly came before the switchover at 2:24 p.m.:
The Globe now has an AP article, which the Globe posted under a separate url. which as of this writing has not been shared or commented on.
This is the sort of thing which gives the media a bad name. If The Globe wanted to deep six the original post, it should not have done a complete substitution, particularly since it went from hitting Warren to defending her. And even if it were to do such a thing, there should have been a notice.
All of the many hundreds of people who shared the original post because they thought it was critical of Warren were made unwitting dupes to a defense of Warren by Tom Menino.
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Comments
The thing that strikes me about this controversy was how Harvard and the left were so willing to get into just how much blood would mark someone as a minority. There was absolutely no difference in listening to them search for 1/32nd of Cherokee than in listening to a bunch of KKK members sitting around trying to decide who is white or black or an octoroon. They are the same people, committing the same sin, for the same reasons… giving out benefits based on race.
This is why Ivy League schools no longer carry any weight in middle America. They are filled with people of such low intellect that they cannot even realize how low their character has become.
The Ivy schools, and their alum, still find great value in the “club”, and are willing to protect their brand. All of our Supreme Court Justices attended Harvard or Yale, all but Ginsburg graduating from one or the other. Those people will defend the brand because they benefit from that brand being strong. I would bet your chances of clerking for somebody on the Supreme Court are greatly enhanced if you are from Harvard or Yale.
Reminds me of a story a friend told me about Ranger School. Seems he had to go when West Pointers were going. Also seems that at the end of every week each squad would vote somebody off. The first time voted off, the person was sent to another squad. Get voted off enough squads and you’re out of Ranger School. When my friend was there, the first week every squad voted off an Academy guy. After that, the Academy guys wised up, and voted together. My friend was fortunate, he wasn’t from the Academy and he finished Ranger School. The enlisted men were sent packing first, and then ROTC guys. All the Academy guys finished. They knew sticking together was more important than quality. The elites will first look out for themselves.
Isn’t there something called/termed, culpability?
Would not the defenders Saca
jaweashit be “culpable”, in this fraud?I humbly apologize to the Shoshone, for sullying their origin. You are a bright and honored Native American people.
Bait and switch. Dishonest. It looks like the original article is here: http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2012/05/25/sen_brown_harvard_must_fix_native_american_claim/
Harvard’s reluctance to even address this serious issue of integrity, a problem it shares abundantly with Warren herself, demonstrates the left’s general shallowness on the entire affirmative action issue. Harvard, if truth/veritas were in the forefront, s/b hopping mad that the wool was pulled over its eyes by Warren who laid claim to AA privileges to which she clearly was never entitled. But truth is not at the forefront and we come to learn that Harvard itself was doing plenty of wool pulling over its own eyes. With Warren it got to say it had a diverse faculty without actually having one.
No surprise the Boston Globe is a propaganda arm of the Democrat party. Isn’t almost every newspaper? No wonder Warren Buffet is buying them up.
I live in the real world. As such, I believe that if Obama is re-elected, he will ultimatley exercise the Internet kill switch power recently given to the president — under one pretense or another — and ‘news’ information will be limited, for however long, to broadcast (easy to control) and small newspapers. No surprise either that Warren Buffet is buying small newspapers by the dozens all over the country.
For a parody of Buffet’s newspaper purchases, containing a lot of frightening truth:
http://thefinereport.com/2012/05/buffett-says-free-online-news-unsustainable-too-much-freedom-for-these-peons/
There may be a civil war going on inside the Globe. If you go to the front page of Boston.com and click on the link below the Scott Brown article that says, “Discuss”, you arrive at a different article:
‘Filings raise more questions on Warren’s ethnic claims’
http://www.boston.com/news/politics/articles/2012/05/25/federal_documents_indicate_harvard_repeatedly_reported_elizabeth_warren_as_native_american/?page=full
You really have to see the photo of Elizabeth Warren that they used. It is hilarious! It shows her half-sitting on her desk and holding a stack of documents that is over two feet high. The caption says, “Elizabeth Warren has not proven she has a Native American ancestor, instead saying she based her belief on family lore.”
There are over 400 comments to that article, and most of them are unhappy about Warren’s unethical behavior and angry at the MA Democratic party for failing to vet her.
Judging from that disguised link and the photo, I am not the only Democrat out there who is angry at the Democratic Party for putting up such an unethical, sleazy candidate.
Here is the original title to the above linked article – it is still used in the banner across the top of the browser window, and it is also still indexed in Google News with the following title:
“Federal documents indicate Harvard repeatedly reported Elizabeth Warren as Native American”
http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2012/05/25/federal_documents_indicate_harvard_repeatedly_reported_elizabeth_warren_as_native_american/
The new “Filings raise more questions on Warren’s ethnic claims” title is far more innocuous. I think there are factions at the Globe right now who are fighting over this issue.
Re: “Jacobson is doing only what other McCain supporters are starting to do, produce these worthless pieces from some narrow perch in order to cover up their own racist bigotry.”
— Is Professor Jacobson bigoted towards people like Elizabeth Warren because she is an Indian, or is he bigoted towards her because she is a white person? Or is it both? Or is he just 1/32 bigoted toward her, because she’s an Indian. If both, is he then a 2/32 bigot? And do you round bigotry to the neartest fraction (making him a 1/16 bigot)? But what if he is completely bigoted towards her as an Indian, but only partly bigoted towards her as a white person? Is he then a 17/32 bigot? (I was never good at bigotry math in school.)
1. There are typos in the quote from Mayor Menino. I’ll try to fix some of them:
Better.
2. I was thinking the Cherokee stuff had run its course…but the Left lets you know what they fear.
3. It would still be good to have new material on Warren. I’m confident that the Cherokee stunt is not the only thing she’s pulled during her snicker “meritorious rise”. Finding the material is another matter.
4. Giving people an affirmative reason to vote for Brown is another matter yet.
http://webmedia.newseum.org/newseum-multimedia/dfp/pdf25/MA_BG.pdf
The front page of the dead tree edition.
“You can’t stop the signal, Mal…”
I don’t think that this was the original article because the author’s name is different.
This was a response to janitor.
One of the fundamental rules of fractions is to express them using the lowest common denominator.
This story does just that in so many ways.
I meant to pdf that this morning (I do that to stuff I suspect will change) but never did.
damn it !!
…”when I have not done nothing of the kind.”
Isn’t a double negative a positive?
Has there EVER been a Cherokee member of the U.S. Senate? If not then Warren’s candidacy would immediately become a Very Big Deal, would’t it?
If not then this simple fact should be a part of Elizabeth Warren’s campaign literature.
Why don’t I see it there?
Is this more evidence that she was lying in the past, but has now stopped lying? Or has she ever stopped lying?
Scott Brown’s call to Harvard is the next step.
Harvard will have to respond at some point. They can ignore Prof. Jacobson, you and me but they can’t ignore the Senator forever. A major candidate always has ways of getting the word out that keeps an issue in play.
We need similar pressure on Penn. They did the same thing as Harvard and for the same reason.
Keep the pressure on, and keep it on long term. November is still a ways away.
[…] Oh, looky. An honest article about Elizabeth Warren’s dubious claims of Native American ancestry that appeared earlier today in the Boston Globe was magically transformed into one defending Warren and attacking Scott Brown without a word of notice to readers. Seems like standard operating procedure for the liberal media these days. Share this:Like this:LikeBe the first to like this post. […]
“This is the sort of thing which gives the media a bad name”
Understatement of the year.
Journalists are letting the Democrats drag them down into oblivion. Because they were so invested in winning the election for Obama and have signed over their souls to the left, they will all crash and burn together with no credibility to save them from the scorn of the American public at large.
Hope I’m not too late with this, but the Amazon reviews for Pow Wow Chow are fantastic.
http://www.amazon.com/Pow-Wow-Chow-Collection-Civilized/dp/9996688445/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1337998671&sr=1-1
Brown should show up at their first debate with a notary and a prepared form authorizing Harvard to release all of her employment records.
The Left – political and academic – is nowhere more evidently hypocritical than in the matter of racial preferences and identification. Any non-white person is deemed oppressed and deserving – and needing – “affirmative action” to “level the playing field” while, simultaneously, no institution is allowed to question anyone’s self-identification.
There were rumors in the ’80s that you could get into a better school by just claiming to be a minority and omitting the picture for the application. Maybe an urban legend, maybe not.
The Boston Globe, if I recall correctly, is owned by the NYTimes corporation…since when does the NTY allow any articles critical of a Liberal/Progressive politician be published?
I’m just saying…
Rich Vail
Pikesville, Maryland
http://thevailspot.blogspot.com
[powerlineblog was waiting. You’ve created your own instalanche, professor.]
“Has William Jacobson commented on this story? If so, I can’t find it, although he was at work on a related Globe story yesterday.”
http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2012/05/mrs-warrens-profession-contd-2.php
[The next task after Ms Warren is doing something about ‘Choomwagon’ aka ‘The Pakalolo Kid’]
Below are links to a new service, PastPages.com, which screen-grabs the “front page” of various news sites once an hour, including, the Boston Globe.
The headline “Brown accuses Harvard of falsely reporting Warren’s ethnicity” appears in the top section, just below the headline “Filing on Warren’s ethnicity add to questions”, sometime between 8:00 and 9:00am EDT:
Boston Globe / Friday May 25, 2012, 9:02 a.m. PDT
http://www.pastpages.org/update/642/
Two hours later the headlines are flipped:
Boston Globe / Friday May 25, 2012, 11:02 a.m. PDT
http://www.pastpages.org/screenshot/39507/
Sometime in the next hour, the “Brown: Harvard” headline is replaced with the “Menino weighs in on flap over Warren’s heritage” headline:
Boston Globe / Friday May 25, 2012, 12:02 p.m. PDT
http://www.pastpages.org/screenshot/39580/
About PastPages:
http://www.pastpages.org/about/
Oops, first link is wrong….
correct link:
Boston Globe / Friday May 25, 2012, 9:02 a.m. PDT
http://www.pastpages.org/screenshot/39361/
what a great resource
I am delighted you think so. I very much enjoy reading your excellent blog.
Ben Walsh, the creator of PastPages.org, is doing some very interesting work in the field of computer-assisted reporting. He’s someone to follow. http://palewi.re/who-is-ben-welsh/
Ben wants to “expand the site to archive a full HTML cache in addition to a flat image”, that would make the site content searchable!
Here is the Kickstarter project listing:
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/651552740/keep-pastpages-alive
Checkout the FAQ, Ben pretty much read our minds in terms of use..