Warren struggles to answer question on Native American claim: “So why did you do it?”
Warren is now in the Apology Phase of her Native American problem, but it’s not working.
Elizabeth Warren’s unjustifiable claim to be Native American for employment purposes continues to frame the narrative of her presidential campaign. Call it the Apology Phase.
The first phase was the Family Lore Phase. That Phase lasted from late April 2012, when it was first discovered she claimed to be Native American, until the summer of 2018. Warren repeatedly insisted she was Native American based on what her family told her, and anyone who questioned her story was attacking her parents.
The problem with the Family Lore Phase was that Warren didn’t start claiming to be Native American until the mid-1980s when she was in her 30s and climbing the law professor ladder that eventually led to Harvard Law School. Had Warren grown up as a child believing she was Native American, you wouldn’t have expected her to wait decades to claim that status. But she never identified with or associated with Native Americans until relatively late in life — that doesn’t pass the smell test of someone who took her supposed family lore seriously.
The other problem is that many of the family lore stories have been called into question, particularly the story about her parents having to elope because Warren’s mother was part Native American. There is no evidence that her mother was part Native American, or that it was used against her as to her marriage, which was celebrated in the local newspaper at the time. This is a story Warren did not tell publicly, as far as we can tell, until the people with firsthand knowledge were dead.
The Family Lore Phase gave way the the DNA Phase.
With Trump mocking and branding her as Pocahontas, Warren was under pressure to do something, anything, to shake the narrative that she was a faker. So she took a DNA test, then rolled out the results just before the midterms, with a Boston Globe puff piece and slick video. It was a disaster. The DNA test showed Warren might be as little as 1/1024th Native American by DNA. Even worse, taking such a test was offensive to actual Native Americans, who do not use DNA as a measure of whether one is Native American, much less a tribal member. Democrats were shaken and worried that Warren took Trump’s bait and would not be able to withstand a general election campaign.
The DNA Phase then gave way to the current Apology Phase. Warren hardly claims to be Native American anymore, though she uses a linguistic sleight of hand, repeatedly focusing on tribal membership. The problem isn’t just that Warren isn’t a tribal member, she’s not Native American at all. So focusing on tribal membership is a dodge.
Despite all the apologies, Warren can’t shake her Native American problem, because she just can’t admit that she tried to rig the system. She can claim that she didn’t in fact get hired because she checked the box (something that can’t actually be determined until her complete hiring files are released), but the suspicion still lingers that she tried to benefit.
Former Obama adviser David Axelrod interviewed Warren on CNN, and asked her why she checked the box. The Daily Caller reports:
“The question that I’ve never understood is why? Why did you in 1986 fill out on your — I guess it was your law license or something — an exam application, ‘American Indian’? Why did you check those boxes?” Axelrod questioned. “Because obviously that’s a very small part of your lineage, you know, 1/32nd or something. So why did you do it?”
Warren responded with an excuse she has used repeatedly, which is that she believed stories about her heritage told by her family members.
“I grew up in Oklahoma, I learned about my family the same way most people learn about their family,” Warren asserted. “Based on what I learned growing up, and the fact that I love my family, decades ago I sometimes identified as Native American.”
Warren denied that identifying as Native American was ever a tactic to gain favor with potential employers, despite the fact that Harvard Law School once touted her as a Native American professor. A Fordham Law Review article from 1997 identified Warren as Harvard Law’s “first woman of color.”
“But the universities kind of fudged and used you for their own purposes,” Axelrod answered.
“It never had anything to do with my getting a job,” Warren said. “Even so, I shouldn’t have done it. I’m not a person of color, I am not a citizen of a tribe.”
Axelrod also asked if Warren made a mistake by releasing a video about her DNA test results, to which Warren said, “I can’t go back — all I can do is go forward … I think I have [learned from it].”
It’s cringeworthy.
I don’t know if Warren’s campaign is over because of the Native American issue. Assuming she can raise the funds, she’ll keep on pushing forward. But she’s never going to rid herself of her Native American deception.
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In a way, this is a hoax in the style of Jussie Smollett — she figured her tale would be accepted, and it’s all fallen apart. Took longer, of course. But karma’s a bitch.
Both hoaxes come from the same place — pathological narcissism, a profound sense of entitlement, and, a brazen willingness to exploit the Left’s obsession with promoting tribalist identity traits as alleged substitutes for sound personal character and substantive achievement.
The surprising disaster is not the self-serving deception. That’s run-of-the-mill stuff, and should make her right at home in Washington. The weird thing is why, once she took a test which demonstrated that she’s no more Indian than I am, did she tout it as some sort of club she could use to whack Orange Man Bad? Proving that she’s not remotely Indian can’t possibly damage Trump. Which she had to realize immediately, unless she’s even more innumerate than most Harvard types and genuinely doesn’t realize that “1/1024 Indian” isn’t a whole helluva lot. “Here’s the proof that I’m absolutely full of bananas—take that, Donald J Trump!”
She’s successfully established that she’s not only a liar, a cheat, and a fraud, but that she’s as dumb as Alexandria Psycho-Chick. (Or possibly psychotic, which could give the same effect, but just plain dumb is more likely.) Toweringly dumb is not a good look even for a Democrat. And no kind of “apology tour” can make her any smarter. She is not Presidential material even by Liberal standards.
I’m sorry, but there is nothing—absolutely nothing—that Warren can do or say that will convince me that she didn’t exploit her Indian “ancestry” to further her career. She’s a libtard, and it’s in the their DNA.
She did it because she’s a liar. If it had nothing to do with any job, why bother? And why didn’t she ever correct the record until forced to by her taking a DNA test.
The question about whether the DNA test was a mistake really means – why did you allow yourself to get caught?
At this point I would guess that she has crossed the line where she would tell a lie even if equally served s well by the truth. Maybe she drank that brewski on TV so she can play it off with the “I was an alcoholic but now I’m all better” card.
The Why?
She’s a grifter. Knew she couldn’t make it on her own merits so reasoned that if she distinguished herself somehow she might make it to better and better teaching positions. Neither her scholarship nor the law school from which she graduated (Rutgers) would put into a higher orbit, but pretending she was a Cherokee, she reasoned, might be the key that turns the lock.
And it was. So she had to steal someone else’s identity to do it. Big deal, she said. And so it went.
And she would have coasted to an easy life. (Her public financial statements have her net worth > 10,000,000. Totally undeserved. Talk about not earning or building that!
Having achieved a teaching spot at Harvard Law boosted the confidence she had in her con. “I got this far. How much more can I push it?”
And that was her undoing, her Market Garden, her Bridge Too Far.
This is not a sudden outbreak of journalism at CNN. The only reason she was asked the ancestry question was because the powers that be at CNN are convinced Warren can’t beat Trump in 2020 and they are trying to scuttle her campaign in favor of someone they believe can. Kamala Harris is the one I think CNN prefers.
What would be REALLY fun is if Hillary! decided to run again. CNN can’t shriek “RUSSIAN COLLUSION ROBBED HILLARY!!” 24/7 for the last 2+ years and then turn around and torpedo Her campaign in favor of another.
“Why did you do it?”
Why does any greedy, sociopathic sleazebag do what they do?
She’s scum. If Fauxcahontas was young, the idiots of the young democrats might forgive her. But aside from being bigoted, and racist, they also discriminate based on age.
Quite a collection of garbage, is it not?
We take back our schools or we lose our way of life.
Here’s a theory. She was believing her own hype.
Then it becomes obvious: Get a DNA test that shows 1/64 or so of authentic indian blood so you can say something like “See, I was right. Now I’ll run for President as the only Native American candidate!”
If she’s that self-deluded, it explains why she did not do it as anonymous and secret as possible. Instead, she blazed away and when the results came back, went down in flames.
Let’s not forget that it took President Trump’s making an issue of this to get it out into the open when the leftist elite media preferred to ignore the questions.
Arnold said it best:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=jC1vAvbGSNw
Interesting that her last statement in the article claims, “I can’t go back – all I can do is go forward… I think I have [learned from it].” And yet, she’s suddenly taken on the leadership role in the whole “reparations for slavery” BS for something that this country banned more than 150 years ago. Sounds a lot like “going back” to me and trying to get people that were never slave owners to pay reparations to people that were never slaves. She’s now in the Victimhood Phase of her campaign…
Accusing Lizzie of some kind of fraud simply because she desperately wanted to be a better person – by being non-white – is unfair!
There are lots of other white people running, but Lizzie is the only one with the courage to admit that it’s wrong for white people to run for office – continuing the cycle of oppressions! – and trying to become a better person.
It’s wonderful that she recognizes her own failure to be a good person (meaning, not white) is something that she can change by simply identifying as truly human.
She got there WAY ahead of that poser Bob ‘Beto’ O’Rourke and should be given the credit she deserves for her moral evolution. It’s just too bad she didn’t go the whole way and identify as a trans-indian.
She’s going to have to start playing the misogyny card soon. And if the Wookie decides to run, she’ll have to play the “I’m the only woman running whose husband isn’t a former POTUS” card. Yeah, that’ll work. Running on the issues is not an option.
Asking Warren “Why’d you do it?” is like asking a bank robber, “Why’d you rob the bank?”
Bank robbers rob banks because that’s where the money is. Warren checked the box because that’s where the preferences are.
….and that’s where the Money Was for Her.
All of this rolled into the the same ball of string comes out as “questionable judgement”, an unsound decision making process.
Yes, the current occupant of the White House seems to dabble in that area on occasion, but Lie-a-watha cannot defend herself by saying, “look at him… What’s the big deal?” Comparing herself to DJT will not endear her to her “tribe”.
Tangentially related, it is interesting that the various Native american groups reject DNA as a indicator of heritage. Is it because its seen as “white man’s magic”, or do they see the actual anthropology that shows the people who populate this side of the globe, “native” people, walked over from north Asia when the land bridge (or glacier, your choice) at what is now the Bering Straits existed. Over many generations they worked their way south to populate most of the continents. There are apparently no specific DNA markers for the tribes of North America. Membership or inclusion in a tribe is a subjective issue, you have to be voted in, or out, by the elders.
Fine. She’s done the whole thing. It’s past.
Now let’s start asking her why she never bragged up the other 31/32 (or 1023/1024) of her family? If she’s so proud of her heritage, why has she never said anything about the overwhelming majority of it?
We are a country who turns on politicians who lie about who they are to try to advance themselves politically. Oh, yes we are. That’s why Warren is apologizing and backpedaling, instead of celebrating.