Warren’s “stubborn unwillingness” to apologize for Cherokee claim is “a ghost haunting” her
The inherent conflict between Warren’s politics and her life performance makes it impossible for her to admit that she was a victimizer.
Several readers have emailed me an article in The Boston Globe, Elizabeth Warren’s Native American problem goes beyond politics. It’s worth a read, and *relatively* balanced for The Globe.
One of the readers wrote:
It reminded me of all the hard work you’ve done in the detailed documentation of her dishonest, self-serving claim to Native American heritage.
If she’s hit a speed bump in her road to the White House, you paved it into place!
I appreciate those kudos, but also need to note that I didn’t do it alone. The Boston Herald broke the story in late April 2012, and reporters Hillary Chabot and Chris Cassidy did excellent follow up work.
Cherokee genealogical researcher Twila Barnes did the deep digging into the historical records and Cherokee rolls, including digging up numerous interesting nuggets that contradicted Warren’s supposed “family lore” stories. Michael Patrick Leahy at Breitbart News broke many stories about Warren’s law school career and use of the false self-identification. And there were others, such as law professor David Bernstein who discovered Warren’s entries in a law school directory used for hiring purposes, and radio host Howie Carr who uncovered the apparent plagiarism of the infamous Pow Wow Chow entries. And I’m sure there are others I’ve forgotten to name.
But it is true, that we doggedly pursued this and other Warren problems, and brought it all together in February 2013 at ElizabethWarrenWiki.org, a one-stop shop for detailed, sourced research on Warren’s Cherokee and Native American problems, and other issues.
Whenever Warren is fighting with Trump, traffic to the Wiki site spikes from search engine searches about Warren. We’ve recently upgraded the technology behind the Wiki site, cleaned up dead links and videos, and are embarking on expanding the coverage.
No Apologies
Warren’s almost 6-year refusal to admit what she did is just baffling. It’s beyond politics.
The person who claims to speak up for the victims of a rigged system tried to rig the system in her favor by misappropriating the ethnic identity of a truly victimized people, the Cherokee people. Perhaps this inherent conflict between Warren’s politics and her life performance makes it impossible for her to admit that she was a victimizer.
But I think it’s more than that, it’s some sort of character flaw.
If Warren, early on after the Boston Herald broke the story, had simply fessed up, this would have gone away. She was going to beat Scott Brown in the Senate race regardless — to use a current political analogy, Warren could have shot someone in the middle of Boylston Street in Boston, and Massachusetts liberals still would have supported her.
So the problem has lingered. And The Globe, which in the past was a cheerleader for Warren and tried to cover for her on the Cherokee problem, correctly diagnoses the problem:
There’s a ghost haunting Elizabeth Warren as she ramps up for a possible 2020 presidential bid and a reelection campaign in Massachusetts this year: her enduring and undocumented claims of Native American ancestry….
As Warren is mentioned as a serious presidential contender in 2020, even some who should be her natural allies say Warren has displayed a stubborn unwillingness to address the gap between the story she was told of Native Americans in the family tree and a dearth of hard evidence to back it up.
It’s a disconnect that has lingered unresolved in the public sphere for more than five years.
Warren says she grew up understanding that forebears in her mother’s family had Cherokee and Delaware blood. But examinations by genealogists of documents including birth, marriage, and death records have shown no conclusive proof of Native American ancestry.
While it may be easy to dismiss Trump’s continued Twitter attacks as bigotry, which has been Warren’s response thus far, the view of her more sympathetic critics is that she is leaving herself vulnerable by not clearing the air in a definitive way. Their fear is that the issue could act as a drag on her profile as she considers whether to seek the Democratic nomination for president.
“From a strategic perspective, taking the live step of taking responsibility and an apology, even while noting that it was not her intention to harm anyone, is important,” said Tom Bonier, CEO of the Democratic polling firm TargetSmart. “Will that change votes? I don’t think that doing so will lose her votes.”
Warren hasn’t apologized. And I’m not sure at this point she can. Not after her Twitter wars with Trump. The Globe goes on:
“It frankly became a much bigger issue than anyone expected, and it went on much longer than anyone expected,” said Mary Anne Marsh, a Democratic strategist based in Boston. “It was compounded by the Warren campaign’s refusal to address it.”
She added: “When someone is pouring gasoline on a fire it’s always better to put the fire out. But, in this case, the Warren campaign thought it would burn itself out.”’
No Regrets
Warren seems unmoved. She thinks she has put it all behind her, according to the Globe:
Warren says she believes these issues are in her past.
“These issues were extensively litigated in 2012 and I think the people of Massachusetts made their decision,” Warren said in her brief interview with the Globe this month. “I think what the people of Massachusetts and what voters are concerned about is the direction that Donald Trump is pulling this country.”
Warren is delusional if she thinks her ethnic deception is behind her, and she can rely on Trump hatred to save her.
Trump’s attacks on Warren, and her barbed responses, have served to solidify Warren’s brand as being the Fake Indian.
The Boston Globe, long a Warren backer, seems to get that, even if Warren doesn’t.
DONATE
Donations tax deductible
to the full extent allowed by law.
Comments
Guilty of cultural appropriation
And that is the least that she’s guilty of.
Remember, Fauxcahontas claims to have been behind ‘Occupy Wall Street,’ which called for revolution.
Fauxcahontas can scam her East coast voters all she wants, but her being a fake oath-taker in federal office is a matter for the entire country.
The referenced Boston Globe column quotes Warren as saying:
“My three brothers and I learned about our family heritage back in Oklahoma the way everyone does, from our aunts, our uncles, and our grandparents. I never asked for any benefit from it and I never got any benefit from it.”
Her comment is reminiscent of those from past losing presidential contenders:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=esUTn6L0UDU
https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2016/oct/8/hillary-clinton-says-she-has-both-public-and-priva/
My first thought when I read this was that they are clearing her from the field. But after reading this comment (and others) I see it is possible she could be the candidate. Why not? Just like McCain, Bob Dole, Hillary, Kerry, etc., it is her turn, is it not?
I hope she is the candidate.
WOW! Just Wow!
Lizzie Borden doesn’t tell any lies, unless they’re WHOPPER LIES!
I wouldn’t call this an “ethnic deception.” I would call it opportunistic fraud. It was also completely unnecessary. That shows something about her character that SHOULD ruin her chances to be president.
Who is to say that claiming to be an ethnic person qualified for affirmative action hiring by Harvard was unnecessary? We don’t know that she would have been hired by Harvard, or received tenure, without the claim to affirmative hiring. We can surmise it was a fraud by virtue of the reported fact that she stopped listing herself as a Native American faculty member after receiving tenure.
Harvard claims that it was unnecessary, because the committee that decided to hire her had no idea she’d listed herself as a minority, and so couldn’t have been affected by that claim. We’re free to disbelieve them, but we can’t prove they’re lying.
She’s trying the same response that Hillary made to the emails and to Benghazi – “At this point what difference does it make?”
Warren is stuck – she can’t apologize without admitting she’s always been a liar, and she can’t explain it away.
So, she will talk about running for President, but she never will. She’s as high up as she’s ever going to get.
It might be preferable for the country if she did run for the presidency.
For those who might be wondering, I should add – run for the presidency and failed.
Oh, the MSM will have no problem going all-in if she turns out to be the Party’s Great Socialist Hope. Recall early treatments of Bath-House Barry, before they all decided to push him as The One We’ve Been Waiting For—he was brushed off as not being really all that “black”. True enough, perhaps, but easily forgotten when the time was right.
In any case, I wouldn’t get too excited about waiting for her to apologize. An apology would’t change the fact that she’s a fake nobody, pretending to be something of no unusual merit but at least slightly different. Once she admits she’s not slightly different, she’s still a fake nobody, but one who’s also admitted to being a fraudster—no great improvement.
I’m not convinced that many democrats will worry about her lie(s).
You have one “m” too many in that sentence.
I see what you did there…….
She “never got any benefit from it”? How about when she used it to get priority treatment during her law school application? Lie-a-wahtha strikes again!
What the **** are you talking about? There is no evidence that she mentioned it in her application to law school.
You are about as intellectually goofy as your cartoon image.
This, for the readers of this blog:
“Warren is a bit of an academic grifter. She’s willing to fake her way to the top. When she came to Harvard Law School, she was — believe it or not — considered by some to be a “minority hire.” She listed herself as a minority on a legal directory reviewed by deans and hiring committees. The University of Pennsylvania “listed her as a minority faculty member,” and she was touted after her hire at Harvard Law School as, yes, the school’s “first woman of color.”
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/454121/elizabeth-warrens-native-american-claim-academic-fraud
Wow, what a maroon. You seem not to understand the difference between applying to attend a law school and being hired to teach there.
As far as anyone knows, Warren never applied to Harvard law school. She certainly never attended. And when she was applying to law schools she was not claiming to be a minority.
Decades later Harvard headhunted her to join its faculty. At that time she was claiming to be a minority, but Harvard claims the committee who hired her were unaware of this, and that it therefore had no effect on the decision to hire her. I doubt they’re fooling anyone, but there doesn’t seem to be any way to prove they’re lying.
Admittedly you did specify application to attend (as a student). Of course nobody here was claiming that she used affirmative action status for student admission to any school. All the comments, and article, involving her claimed status were about her claims to affirmative action hiring. Guess we can chalk up your admissions comment to posting the proverbial straw man.
Edward, are you unable to read? What is this thread about? It is about Walker Evans’s completely unsupportable claim, which I have never before heard anyone make, that “she used it to get priority treatment during her law school application”. That is the only claim we are discussing here. And you have the brazen gall to claim I made it up, when it’s right up there, in black and white, where anyone can see it?
If “white privilege” is so powerful, why did Liz Warren pretend to be a minority.
Good point, Neo.
She’s greedy, dishonest scum.
And those are her good qualities.
Fauxcahontas is a national joke, and about as popular as jeff flake, and as likely to get elected to anything.
While confession is certainly good for the soul, the lawyer in her knows admitting it and apologizing would be confessing to fraud, and therefore also as bad for her political prospects as stubbornly refusing, maybe worse.
Yes. If one is void of a conscience, political calculations do become simpler as one does not not distracted by moral “noise.” She is dangerous.
Shrieking Crow has big temper. Heads will roll if peasants chatter.
Milhouse, no one denies your intelligence or the sober analysis you bring to this blog when some of us stray into hyperbole or get drunk on our own propaganda.
But there’s something about you that’s unsettling. As if you’re not always acting in good faith.
So.. this is the part where you say ” I was wrong I didn’t know that” and repair your credibility as a straight shooter.
Your move.
Was he wrong?
In his typically abrasive and pettifogging way, he may be pointing out that “authentic genuine bona-fide Indian” may not have been on Warren’s law school application, even though it was on damn near everything else.
Maybe.
But perhaps I’m being too generous, for a change.
At the time she was applying to law schools the claim wasn’t on anything. She hadn’t thought of it yet.
From Warren’s perspective, what is there for her to apologize for? Getting caught? The ends justify the means thinks she. Her lies helped give her the power she has today. She thinks her critics are idiots. She has demonstrated contempt for the Cherokee Nation multiple times. To her, they were useful tools until they were no longer useful. She thinks the voters are idiots. She is a good leftist — arrogant, dishonest, mean, void of a conscience. She would never act like a complete human being and be shamed into apologizing for a tactic that worked so well for her. She has done nothing wrong thinks she. Sociopaths do no wrong except fail to control or alternatively destroy his or her challenger.
She doesn’t want to answer the second question: Why now?
You’ve corrected “TheFineReport” as to when and in what circumstances Elizabeth Warren represented herself as a minority, but you agree that she did so in an attempt to gain important advantages for herself. Moreover, your observation that Harvard may not have believed her is immaterial: at issue here is Elizabeth Warren’s character, not Harvard’s discernment.
Sorry — this was a reply to Milhouse’s post of January 21, 2018 at 8:54 am.
At some point well into her career she decided to list herself in a directory of “minority academics”. She claimed that she didn’t do this in order to gain any advantage, but her attempt to come up with another reason why she did it failed miserably. It’s obvious that she did want to take advantage of “minority privilege”, assuming nobody would question it. Whether she actually got anything out of it is less clear. It seems very likely that it helped her get the Harvard job, but it’s impossible to prove.
It’s not that Harvard may not have believed her; why wouldn’t they? It’s that Harvard claims not to have consulted this directory, and to have been unaware of her claim until after she was hired. That seems very unlikely, but how are you supposed to disprove it?
At any rate, I have never suggested in any way that any of the above might not be true, so I don’t understand why you feel the need to point it out. Of course she’s dishonest. Did you think I was denying that? But the claim that she got into law school on the strength of this dishonesty is simply false, and I’d never even heard anyone claim it until Walker Evans did in this thread.
She reminds me of Mrs. Bill Clinton. No real accomplishments of her own, and no scruples about stealing them from others.
Well, not really. She does have some accomplishments. Mostly negative. She wrote a broadly panned book on bankruptcy that was chock full of terrible “data” and awful conclusions.
She was, however, an effective expert on bankruptcy for very large interests, and she has successfully flipped houses.
So there’s that…
And she created the CFPB, which has been wreaking havoc for several years until Mulvaney put a bit of a rein on it.
Sorry Lizzie, but there are at least a hundred million men in the US who don’t cotton to being shrieked at.
Sorry Lizzie, but there are at least a hundred million men in the US who don’t cotton to being shrieked at.
Sorry Lizzie, but there are at least a hundred million men in the US who don’t cotton to being shrieked at.
She can not only neutralize this issue, but turn it to her advantage.
Except for hers, Trump’s nicknames are subjective, qualitative personality traits: “Lyin Ted”; “Low energy Jeb!”, “Crooked Hillary”, “Sneaky Dianne Feinstein”, etc.
Warren’s nickname, “Pocahontas”, is based on an identity. If she disclaims the identity, the nickname loses its power.
So let’s say Trump spends the next year and a half referring to her as Pocahontas. Trump’s fully invested in it. Then as she’s about to announce her presidential race in mid 2019 she comes clean in a very gracious way. Something along the line of:
“As many of you know, I was raised in Oklahoma to believe I was part Native American. I honestly believed it and had no reason to doubt my family. But after being elected to the Senate several years ago, my political opponents have shown me I was mistaken. I thank them for helping me discover my true identity, which does not include any Native American ancestory. And I apologize to the Native American community for any grief my honest, but mistaken, belief caused them.”
She’ll get attagirls from all the swells for finally coming clean, and Trump will have wasted a lot of time and energy in branding her “Pocahontas” which will no longer be effective.
“…which will no longer be effective.”
Uh, he’ll just switch to Lieawatha…
Not a fan of fauxahontas, but years ago I blundered into a native American (First Peoples?) website while trying to find info on a documented ancestor who happened to be a Creek. I was immediately assailed as a cultural appropriator. Turns out, according to the defender of the first people, I was only in it to take their government entitlements. Didn’t matter whether the ancestry was correct. Never mind that I wasn’t looking for entitlements, my crime was that I didn’t have a large enough quantum to be considered worthy.
the left celebrated Obama blatantly violating the constitution ..the Clintons really …and I hate saying this….been and are above the law but half the country doesnt care What makes you think that this lie of warren will have any effect ?
I am tired of political dynasties. There is no way I would vote for anyone else from the Obama or Clinton families.
In any event, I would like to see Trump have a second term, and then watch all these entitled illegals, refugees and affirmative losers squeal.
As seen on twitchy with a slight modification:
Pretendian has enough faces to be a totem pole.