Yesterday, Scott Brown accused Elizabeth Warren’s parents of being liars.
As those of you who have followed the U.S. Senate race closely know, Elizabeth’s parents raised four children — three sons who served in the military a daughter who went to college and law school, raised two children and worked all her life on an issue that mattered. They were good people.
Scott Brown should know better than to go after people who are not around to defend themselves, but his behavior around the latest Native American heritage issue has shown his true colors: that he will say and do anything to win.
This is also consistent with the latest news on Scott Brown’s Karl Rove like campaign manager, Jim Barnett — a Republican operative with a history of nasty attacks and dirty campaigning.
Usually, Barnett makes the attacks and Brown hides behind him at a distance, but yesterday Brown took it a step further.
Families should be off limits, the dead should be off limits, and a Senator should just behave better than that. Scott Brown should apologize – not just for his latest stepping over the line, but for running a campaign that is so separated from the issues and so centered on mud-slinging and tearing down his opponent.
Bob Neer says
Where is the attack. That is a bad move by him to make the attack himself, and yet another sign of weakness and desperation from his campaign, which has been very poorly run to date, as evidenced by the fact that they have blown a colossal lead and a 3-1 cash advantage, plus incumbency.
johnk says
Herald
johnk says
that you are a jackass, because that’s true.
Brown’s quote:
dont-get-cute says
This article contains more of Brown and Warren’s actual statements.
I don’t think Brown is calling his own mom and dad liars, is he? He’s just saying that people sometimes believe inaccurate things about themselves, and tell their kids those inaccurate things, and that’s what happened here. No one suggests they lied to her, or that she lied, he’s just saying that she shouldn’t have used family lore on a box with so many implications, non-trivial implications for lots of people. It’s fine for her to believe it about herself and claim it in casual conversation, but to rely on it as fact when she knows it winds up in federal diversity statistics, its not trivial anymore and she should have stronger basis in fact. And anyhow, now that they know, they should correct the record and admit they were wrong, she’s not an Indian.
nopolitician says
Did Scott Brown check to see if his parents were really divorced? Did he get copies of the certificate, or did he rely on his parents telling him they were divorced? Did he do the research when he filled out financial aid forms when he applied to college?
If not, then he is a huge, huge hypocrite.
dont-get-cute says
It was a real thing, I’m sure. The equivalent falsehood would be if he claimed his parents divorced, but actually they stayed as an intact marriage all together in a happy home and he always went to their one happy home for holidays. See, kids of divorce live lives as kids of divorce, she never lived a life as a Cherokee. There are people who do.
nopolitician says
It doesn’t matter if he lived it. The experience isn’t what helps you on the financial aid form, the fact that your parents are divorced is what helps you. I’ve heard plenty of cases where the parents did not actually officially divorce, they just parted ways – but that doesn’t count on the financial aid forms for you to “check the box” that your parents are divorced.
So did Scott see the actual copy of the divorce documents before he checked the box?
johnk says
parents are liars and insinuating that Warren received benefits that never happened. Unbelievable, what’s wrong with this guy.
dont-get-cute says
Does she think we’re stupid? Even if they are right that it had no effect on her career, she didn’t know it wouldn’t give her an edge, she surely thought it would give her an edge, make her more interesting and desirable and authentic.
whosmindingdemint says
according to cutey
dont-get-cute says
I think it’d be great for a University to offer a diverse faculty of interesting people with many different perspectives, and to open up avenues for advancement to historically disadvantaged families and communities, and chip away at the expectation that only white guys can be good lawyers or professors or whatever. She never did that, she reinforces the perception that white people are scumbags.
oceandreams says
“Benefits that are entitled to people who need them and who historically have been discriminated upon” says Scott Brown? How heartening that Senator Brown supports and believes in affirmative action! I suspect there are precious few candidates so heavily financially backed by both the Tea Party and Wall Street who believe in special benefits for people “who historically have been discriminated upon.”
I’d be interested in hearing more details about this from Senator Brown. What benefits are “needed” by which people “who historically have been discriminated upon?” And what is he prepared to do to promote this point of view legislatively?
bluewatch says
Why does Scott Brown constantly say that Elizabeth Warren’s family is wrong? They aren’t wrong. She is a native American. That’s who she is.
Mark L. Bail says
looking at RedMassGroup. All they can post about is Elizabeth Warren. I don’t get it.
bostonshepherd says
You don’t get it.
Mark L. Bail says
following up on my comments on the election post.
Which one of the three posters are you on RMG? Ram Rod Radio? Or Brian Eno’s little brother?
kbusch says
Mr Eno has done a fair bit of opposition research.
He, no doubt, will try to pursue this from every possible angle until something like an actual scandal appears.
centralmassdad says
signal to noise ratio very poor if late
kbusch says
It’s better if early.
Mark L. Bail says
I’m afraid it will be like this until November. Our sub-bridge dwelling brethren are no help in this matter, but they are not completely at fault.
centralmassdad says
So it is the silly season.
But still.
dan-p says
In keeping with his middle-schooler mentality, Fehrnstrom totally blew his load too early on this story. That’s a good thing, considering the Warren campaign once again showed its apparently limitless ineptitude by not getting in front of the whole story from the start. If Fehrnstrom wasn’t as equally stupid, he would have held onto this story until August or September.
merrimackguy says
I’m still waiting for the brouhaha over Alya Brown’s being on the Senator’s US Senate health insurance plan to blow over and have this race be about real issues.
whosmindingdemint says
“It was a real thing, I’m sure. The equivalent falsehood would be if he claimed his parents divorced, but actually they stayed as an intact marriage all together in a happy home and he always went to their one happy home for holidays. See, kids of divorce live lives as kids of divorce, she never lived a life as a Cherokee. There are people who do.
dont-get-cute @ Fri 1 Jun 1:44 PM
No. The equivalent thing is if he said he is the victim of child abuse to garner public sympathy and enhance his book deal and the abuse never happened.
Christopher says
…where the doubt about her stated heritage came from? When I first heard she had Native ancestry the thought I had was, “O, that’s interesting; I didn’t know that” followed quickly by realizing I shouldn’t be surprised given she’s from Oklahoma. It never would have occurred to me to question it, so why are others doing so?
dont-get-cute says
She said she was white, then she said she was Indian, then she said she was white again, and now she is saying she’s Indian again.
I don’t know who first noticed these discrepancies, but it was the Herald that brought it to the front page that she had claimed to be Indian for a while.
bluewatch says
For some reason, Cutey thinks that there is a racial difference between a white person and a native American. Cutey should look at the pictures on the official web-site of Cherokee nation, which can be found here:
Those people sure look a lot like white people to me,
farnkoff says
I can’t take the Boston firefighter exam and identify myself as African-American just for the hell of it. You might think we’re in postracial America, but it just isn’t true, Christopher. There is a definition of Native American for federal reporting purposes, and Warren doesn’t meet it. She just isn’t a Native American- not racially, ethnically, culturally, or in any other way except the imaginary sense. As to the origin of the “doubt”, I probably would have doubted her self-classification as soon as I heard it, based on the evidence of my own lying eyes. Funny that Harvard’s people didn’t show a little more curiosity before reporting her ethnicity to the government and the world at large.
I think the only people who really care about this kind of (alleged/borderline) fraud, on an emotional level, are certain types of liberals and actual members of racial minorities. Most conservatives (like Brown, Don’t get cute, Bostonshepherd) probably hate affirmative action and workplace diversity policies anyway, which makes their sanctimonious tone in this case ring pretty false. I bet some of them were in fraternities with guys who thought it would be perfectly moral, and a hilarious “revenge” on _____ and ______ , to deceitfully “check a minority box” on an application for this or that scholarship, job, or grant. In affecting moral outrage the conservatives are engaging in performance art for political points, but there is actually an uncharacteristic level of logic to their arguments here. In this case the progressives have been reduced to name-calling, threats of speech suppression, and hands-over-ears irrationality. Also, I think there are “trolls” and political operatives on both sides here, as well as the appearance of biased enforcement of rules (personal attacks are forbidden? really?)
whosmindingdemint says
You talkin’ to me?
Christopher says
If she’s 1/32 Cherokee, the other 31/32 has to be something. Really, the Herald couldn’t fathom mixed ancestry, or that one or the other part of her background might be claimed on a given day depending on the context? Just the fact that it’s the Herald that brought this up should give everyone pause to consider the source.
dont-get-cute says
Diversity isn’t about having a great-great-great-grandfather who was from somewhere diverse, it is about being diverse yourself. It’s about how people live and the adversity and advantages they have in their lives, how they are perceived and limited by others. No one doubted that she might have Cherokee ancestors, heck even a parent or grandparent, but the question was, is she herself a minority, a person of color, someone who brings a unique perspective? Or is she a white woman, like other white women, all of whom have mixed ancestry if you go back far enough, but none of whom ever suffer from lack of white privilege? I think it’s clear she’s been a white woman all her life, and used the family lore of her mother being too Cherokee for her father’s family (how would they know?) to claim special brownie points of diversity as a minority.
whosmindingdemint says
Who asked the question; is she herself a minority? Who?
And is the irony not lost on us that this snot-nosed punk is concerned for those who “suffer from a lack of white privilege?” Yes, yes, she should revel in her white privilege the way ” kids of divorce live lives as kids of divorce” which means what, exactly? Because you know, its clear to Cutey “that she has been a white woman all her life.” What tipped you off, lack of high cheek bones?
Cutey, your chain of being is nasty, brutish and short
whosmindingdemint says
Do you not respond? What are you hiding? Why won’t you anser us? Why? are you lying? The people want to know?
whosmindingdemint says
Surely you can find something to steal.
whosmindingdemint says
–
Christopher says
The evidence of your eyes, really? I’ve encountered plenty of people who have backgrounds that are not visually obvious – are they all lying too? If 1/32 is all she has, and I remind you that my understanding is that is all the current Chief has, then of course she looks European. Plus, she listed this in some directory, not the census or other legal form, and yes, maybe Harvard did after the fact take advantage to get someone off their case about diversity. I doubt the directory asked, “Do you swear under pains and penalties of that the ethnicities you claim are provable and sufficient according to the standards of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission?” or something like that.
There’s no standard that has to be met. I identify as part Scottish, for example, but my clan descent is several generations up one branch of the family tree. I have never played a bagpipe, worn a kilt, participated in the Highland Games or clan events in America, or visited Scotland (hopefully someday on that last one). Does that make me not sufficiently Scottish in your opinion? Would you accuse me of lying if I checked of Scottish in some directory or on some survey? I certainly hope not!
farnkoff says
That’s a big difference, IMO.
Bob Neer says
All she did, apparently, was say that she had some Native American heritage, just like Christopher’s Scottish heritage. That’s it. She never got any hiring preference from that, or any other preference so far as I know.
johnd says
nt
dont-get-cute says
I thought she said she simply “was” Native American, not that she said “that she had some Native American heritage.” And it’s also false that she never got any hiring preference from that, she certainly was given extra preference at Harvard partially because she was a woman and identified as a minority. We know this is true because they were under pressure and had resolved to hire more women and minorities, and then, voila, they hire someone who they then tout as a woman and a minority.
whosmindingdemint says
is now contesting that Warren is a woman.
whosmindingdemint says
is a throwback to the “one drop rule” and the blood quantum laws that were basically used for racist purposes anyway. To argue that Warren does not have indian lineage is to deny anecdotal claims that were quite common until recently. The veracity of such claims might be questionable, but nevertheless people want to and ought to believe what they are told about their family history. Did Warren profit from such a claim? No. The purity argument was the initial motive behind all these rules and puts us squarely back in the 18th Century..
Christopher says
…and neither by all accounts was Elizabeth Warren, and if Native Americans generally are they frankly don’t have much to show for it, having generally higher poverty rates than the rest of us, as I understand it, for example.
Ultimately, this has to come back to the real question – will she make a better Senator than Scott Brown and a great Senator for MA? Even if the worst spin you can give this little “scandal” turned out to be the most accurate spin the answer would still be a resounding yes! In the primary contest as well I would still prefer her to DeFranco because even if her hiring at Harvard were tainted by this, that does not erase the years of research and contributions she has made to exactly the field that is so crucial in this particular election cycle, namely consumer protection from the financial leviathan.
Bob Neer says
Your argument is spot on, and people are going to get bored of this whole issue. The best thing is to discuss it a lot now, in all of its ridiculousness.
whosmindingdemint says
Howard Louis Carr Jr’s “discovery” today that foreclosure queen Warren is exactly like Romney at Bain Capital so therefore Romney must be OK.
dont-get-cute says
Doing it too soon would seem to indicate they didn’t control this story, eh? Maybe it was DeFranco’s team, she’s a lawyer, she might have even seen the directories herself.
whosmindingdemint says
Seriously
dont-get-cute says
Well, if a Senator is measured by how pompous and self-righteous and embarrassingly narcissistic and air headed they can be, then yeah, she’ll be much better. But if a Senator is measured by how senatorial, interested in the best interests of the whole country, and how well they negotiate effective resolutions fast to move on to more important things, then no, she’ll be a terrible senator.
John Tehan says
Pitch perfect description of our current senator, cutie – thanks!
Mark L. Bail says
Rob Eno.
methuenprogressive says
Your fellow Republicans will, no matter how much of a “pompous, self-righteous, embarrassingly narcissistic air head” he is. Is that what attracts you to him?
oceandreams says
Airhead? I thought the Republican smear was that she’s an elitist Harvard intellectual. You all really ought to decide on one or the other.
whosmindingdemint says
Why is that? Who raised the question and why would they think this would be a good way to derail the campaign? Its all part of the right wing agenda, the blueprint to return to the 1920’s. The Brown campaign, and the right, think there is something wrong with legitimizing marginalized groups (except for themselves), affirmative action, etc.
In today’s conservative world there is a finite supply of liberty; if someone else has liberty, then there is less for them. That is why the love the quota myth; it implies that someone must give up something to someone else. The attitudes about everything from civil rights to taxation betrays their Manichean view – and they have had some success with it because no one has held them to account – Brown doesn’t offer a solution, he just points and lets it unfold.
kbusch says
If I understand things correctly, the wingnut story runs something like this:
None of the above is true. However, the caricature of Harvard in the conservative “mind” is such that Eno-readers can “imagine it happening that way”. And that’s proof enough. Any evidence against this story can be discounted. Anything not inconsistent with it counts as proof.
Mr. Lynne says
… are two kinds of ‘supply siders’ – those that believe cutting taxes increases revenues and others who find the first type convenient. The thing this brings to mind for me is this – do people really think as you present or do people just present that thinking because its convenient? The whole thing as always smelled to me of the latter – which is infuriating because it demonstrates a tribalism that owes no fealty to truth.
SomervilleTom says
The GOP has worked diligently to move American culture away from literacy and rationality towards tribalism and superstition for decades. An illiterate, irrational, tribal, and superstitious (and scared and suffering) electorate is far easier to manipulate.
kbusch says
I think there are a number of things at work here. First off is confirmation bias. We all “do” confirmation bias. It would be unfair to expect conservatives to possess a special immunity. There are also tribal effects: because liberalism and conservatism are not just different political stances but moral stances as well, each side looks immoral to the other. As a result, conservatives expect liberals to be naive, hypocritical, mendacious, or opportunistic. We return the favor.
Consequently, a story about Harvard and a liberal that features subterfuge instantly sounds plausible to conservatives. The intellectually fastidious among us react with skepticism when something ill-sourced but ideologically comforting appears in the news. We liberals are not perfect here: a lot of us are certain for example that George W Bush sold his Crawford ranch, but he didn’t. However, to believe that government based on good empirically grounded policy works best does at least encourage the wonkier among us to nurture our skepticism and keep it healthy.
This is not so much the case with political operatives of Eno variety. For them, if it sounds true, it is true. If it isn’t strictly true but refutation is verbose, it is true enough. If it is plausible and confirms with “conservative common sense”, it is true or has a “grain of truth”. It’s hard to outright say such people are lying. They just don’t have as careful a relationship to truth as you or I would regard as meritorious — or, more harshly, they’re such scoundrels that they believe what is convenient and that’s enough for them.
methuenprogressive says
aren’t helping Brown’s campaign as much as they think they are. But they sure are expending a lot if energy in the attempt.