RSS 2.0Democratic Senate candidate Elizabeth Warren, fending off questions about whether she used her Native American heritage to advance her career, said today she enrolled herself as a minority in law school directories for nearly a decade because she hoped to meet other people with tribal roots."Being Native American has been part of my story I guess since the day I was born," said Warren, who never mentioned her Native American heritage on the campaign trail even as she detailed much of her personal history to voters in speeches, statements and a video. "These are my family stories, I have lived in a family that has talked about Native American and talked about tribes since I was a little girl."
Standing up for her claimed heritage, because sitting down will make her too inviting a target for the punsters out there, who are gleefully making references to Sitting Bull.
Politics, Bay State Style.
And if we laugh, t'is so that we may not weep.
Update:
We see how an ivory-towered Harvard professor deals with mockery and skepticism about her integrity, which is, at best, problematic.
A commenter on another site called her:
Elizabeth "Dances With Socialists" Warren.
Heat.
Kitchen.
Tough . . .
But true.
Piling On. And on. And on:
When a politician is being endlessly mocked, when his/her name becomes a punch line, the end of his/her political career is undeniably nigh.
As I have to suspect Elizabeth Warren and her people know all-too-well, having found out the hard way.
How bad is it?
When half-breed, compared to 1/32 breed, looks heap-big good.
When Harvard refuses to answer a question and thus makes the answer painfully obvious:
Harvard won't say if Liz Warren listed as minority
Hint: Harvard lists only one Native American faculty member, without identifying who it is.
When the Photoshop people are having a field day, because this woman is managing somehow to make even Ward Churchill - remember him? - look good.
When the woman and her people, creatures from the worlds of politics and academia all, lack even the tiny bit of sense needed to know that she - they - have stepped into a bottomless hole, and that all of their digging isn't helping out at all.
From Mark "Speaks With Forked Tongue" Steyn:
How does she know she's a Cherokee maiden?Well, she cites her grandfather's "high cheekbones," and says the Indian stuff is part of her family "lore."
Which was evidently good enough for Harvard Lore School when they were looking to rack up a few affirmative-action credits.
The former Obama Special Advisor to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and former Chairperson of the Congressional Oversight Panel now says that "I listed myself in the directory in the hopes that it might mean that I would be invited to a luncheon, a group, something that might happen with people who are like I am," and certainly not for personal career advancement or anything like that.
Like everyone else, she was shocked, shocked to discover that, as The Boston Herald reported, "Harvard Law School officials listed Warren as Native American in the '90s, when the school was under fierce fire for their faculty's lack of diversity."
So did the University of Texas, and the University of Pennsylvania. With the impertinent jackanapes of the press querying the bona fides of Harvard Lore School's first Native American female professor, the Warren campaign got to work and eventually turned up a great-great-great-grandmother designated as Cherokee in the online transcription of a marriage application of 1894.
Alas, the actual original marriage license does not list Great-Great-Great-Gran'ma as Cherokee, but let's cut Elizabeth Fauxcahontas Crockagawea Warren some slack here. She couldn't be black. She would if she could, but she couldn't. But she could be 1/32nd Cherokee, and maybe get invited to a luncheon with others of her kind – "people who are like I am," 31/32nds white – and they can all sit around celebrating their diversity together. She is a testament to America's melting pot, composite pot, composting pot, whatever.
Say goodnight . . .
Liz.