The Media’s Foolish Elizabeth Warren Witch Hunt

[babylonsister]

Michael Tomasky on the Media’s Foolish Elizabeth Warren Witch Hunt
by Michael Tomasky May 26, 2012 4:45 AM EDT
The press is obsessed with Elizabeth Warren’s Cherokee heritage. Too bad it’s the biggest media-manufactured story since the Lewinsky scandal nearly brought down a president.



So now Elizabeth Warren has to prove that she’s 1/32nd Cherokee? The temperature on the story is rising. There was a huge article in the Boston Globe on Friday written to raise a number of questions and suggest that Warren used the minority designation to get her job, or get ahead—exactly at the same time that a poll was released (PDF @ link) showing that 69 percent of Bay State voters don’t consider her heritage to be a “significant” story. It reminds me of nothing so much as Monica Lewinsky, and of the media’s need sometimes to get a grip.

Why Lewinsky? The situations are in fact almost precisely the same. You had then a press pack that had decided that whether Bill Clinton was telling the truth about Monica was a question on which the fate of the republic hinged. The press became self-righteously consumed with its search for The Truth. Meanwhile, outside the Beltway, and outside of Wingnuttia (it existed then, just at about half of its current GDP), nobody cared what the truth was. The media kept producing revelations; surely, now, swore Maureen Dowd and Michael Kelly, America will see this man for the reprobate he is! America looked, yawned, told the press to start acting like grownups, and continued to approve of the job Clinton was doing as president at rates near 70 percent and to oppose impeachment at similar levels.

The appearance Thursday morning of this Suffolk University poll (linked to above) made me think: Well, this story line is about to wrap up. If more than two-thirds of voters don’t care, then that’s that. But no—still going strong! And now it’s not the loopy, right-wing, and pro-Brown Herald, which pushed the story first, but the Globe trying to play catch up. Yes, yes, it’s all in the public interest. What, you say, the public says it isn’t interested? Well, we’ll teach them what’s in their interest!

This is close to embarrassing. True, Warren’s story is a little cheesy. No let’s back up even further. It’s hard to see why someone who is 1/32nd anything can be called that thing. But those are the Cherokees’ rules, and the United States of America for all moral and legal purposes accepts them as the rules. As you may have read when this story broke, the current head of the Cherokee nation, Bill John Baker, is also just 1/32nd Cherokee. He is also, by appearance, completely white. You could mistake him for a Tea-Party Congressman.

snip//

What does this matter anyway? It’s a “character” issue? Oh please. Elizabeth Warren’s character is pretty well established. She was the daughter of an Oklahoma janitor, for God’s sakes, who started working as a pre-teenager when her father had a heart attack. She has children and grandchildren and has taught Sunday school. She’s served on a number of prestigious boards. She got her law degree from Rutgers—a very good school, but the outpost of someone scratching her way up the mountain on her own, without legacy or connections.

more...

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/05/26/michael-tomasky-on-the-media-s-foolish-elizabeth-warren-witch-hunt.html

[Scuba]

1. They're having a hard time finding any dirt on EW, so they're making shit up.

Faux outrage is what the right is all about in this country.

[ProgressiveProfessor]

6. Unfortunately, she has been claiming Native American ancestry for quite some time

Stupid thing to do...and discredits her in the eyes of many due to a loss in credibility.

[Scuba]

7. Sorry, you've got this backwards. She claims the ancestry because she has it. The discredited...

... part goes to those who would deny her that. Those are the same people who would decry her as denying her heritage if she had not checked the box.

It's a lame smear attempt by the right, and it wont work. Warrens bona fides are too well established.

On edit: the made up part is that she is NOT entitled to check the NA box.

[ProgressiveProfessor]

11. I am yet to see anything that justifies her claim

Be glad to learn otherwise.

[Scuba]

12. Have you seen any evidence that disputes her claim?

[hfojvt]

16. But the Brown campaign is calling it a question of honesty

"but their problem is that they have a candidate that's not telling the truth," Barnett told Yahoo News."

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/ticket/elizabeth-warren-goes-wall-street-wake-native-american-180630435.html

Back in the early 1980s when I was kinda first starting to study my family history, one first cousin of my grandfather told me that our ancestors were Amish. Since she was much much older than I, and had done some research, I figured that she knew what she was talking about. Amish is not a race, but if it was, and I checked some box saying that I was part Amish, would that make me dishonest?

I don't think it would.

So shouldn't that be the end of it?

[alp227]

17. yes, the Boston Globe did a front page Friday story about that

"Filings raise more questions on Warren’s ethnic claims"

...for at least six straight years during Warren’s tenure, Harvard University reported in federally mandated diversity statistics that it had a Native American woman in its senior ranks at the law school. According to both Harvard officials and federal guidelines, those statistics are almost always based on the way employees describe themselves.

In addition, both Harvard’s guidelines and federal regulations for the statistics lay out a specific definition of Native American that Warren does not meet.

The documents suggest for the first time that either Warren or a Harvard administrator classified her repeatedly as Native American in papers prepared for the government in a way that apparently did not adhere to federal diversity guidelines. They raise further questions about Warren’s statements that she was unaware Harvard was promoting her as Native American.

[Marr]

2. It just shows how rigged our whole system is by big money.

If you say what Wall Street wants to hear, you can do just about anything and their media will dutifully ignore it, and pooh pooh anyone who does bring it up. But if you say things Wall Street doesn't like, they will actually *manufacture* a scandal if they can't find one.

[Mass]

3. Tomasky could have decided to talk about issues,

he chose to talk about non-issues. It is sad that reporters and columnists are forced to write about the latest fad, even if it is unimportant, but this article is part of the problem and not the solution.

Polls after polls have shown that nobody cares about Cherokeegate in MA. The problem is that every minute passed defending her on that is a minute where you do not attack Brown on his record, exactly what he wants.

He will not win because Harvard wrote she was a minority. He will win because we will NOT HAVE MADE THE CASE THAT HE IS NOT AN INDEPENDENT or a moderate republican (50+% of registered unenrolled in MA). So, liberal bloggers and writers, stop falling in the trap. It is about Brown and his record, something he does not want to do.

[Nye Bevan]

4. If these newspapers want to embarrass themselves like this,

they will end up losing readership, many subscribers will cancel, and they will have only themselves to blame.

[zbdent]

5. If they were really looking for a witch ...

there was one who, years ago, claimed she was ...

Of course, Rs suddenly forgot their claims about how, if you call yourself a "witch", you've sold your soul to Satan ... and thus you cannot be Christian blah blah blah ... so how did she become "good", after (allegedly) selling her soul to Satan?

[gratuitous]

8. It's a pre-fab nontroversy

If she hadn't listed her Cherokee ancestry, the Idiot Brigade would be carping about how she is "ashamed" of her heritage. Isn't it odd that neither choice would have been okay for some people? It's almost as if the liberal media is manufacturing a controversy! Almost.

[WillyT]

9. K & R !!!

[smirkymonkey]

13. I'm moving to Boston next month so she can count on my support.

How the hell Mass ever elected Romney just baffles me.

[Zorra]

14. This is a non- issue. Elizabeth's believing what her mom told her makes her what?

Normal?

Many American families have oral histories pertaining to having American Indian ancestry, stories that are passed down from generation to generation. Sometimes these stories are accurate, and sometimes they are not. If an individual hears these stories as child and believes them, but never questions their accuracy because they were passed down from a parent or relative, can this person be blamed for what they believe to be the truth?

Children generally trust their parents and relatives to give them accurate information about their families.

One huge question that arises in Elizabeth Warren's situation is:

If she was told by her mother that her great great great grandmother was Cherokee, why would she have reason to question this information that came from her mother? Why would she find it necessary to document her heritage?

If your parents tell you are 1/32 Spanish, or Irish, or African American, do you find it imperative to go out of your way to prove it to yourself or others?

This whole thing is about nothing. Apparently, she has not used this belief that she is Cherokee for any financial gain in any way. While it is true that some American Indians get upset when people claim undocumented Native American heritage, it is also true that Native American tribal heritage is sometimes difficult or impossible to substantiate due to inaccuracy of record taking and keeping.

Traditional tribal records are often full of mistakes. Census takers in previous centuries often looked at the color of a person's skin to guess at their percentage of Indian ancestry. Sometimes American Indians told BIA men that they were white, because they worried that their land would be stolen

Sometimes, the documents are just...flat out gone, burned up in a fire, or lost in time.

So maybe she is part Cherokee as she was told by her parents that she was. Maybe her parents were misinformed about this.

If she were trying to get tribal membership, or casino money out of this, then there would be very good reason for us to demand proof of her ancestry.

Otherwise, all she did was reiterate something her mother told her. This does not meant that Elizabeth has been duplicitous in any way if her mother was mistaken about her ancestry. She just believed what her mom told her.

I still believe the things my mom told me as well.

And among those things that my mom told me and that I believe, include, especially include, the stories of my diverse ancestry.

[Scuba]

15. Well said, thanks.