Let’s not even pretend that Elizabeth Warren’s repeating family anecdotes about having Cherokee ancestors is important, substantive in the race for US Senate. What it does illustrate includes:
- First the Boston Herald, dogged closely by the Globe, have been shamelessly puerile in sensationalism over reason and perspective.
- Incumbent Sen. Scott Brown delights in screaming about moot trivialities to shift ears from his terrible record at both state and federal levels.
- Warren’s camp seems naive, depending on her successes at the federal level in financial policy and practice, while allowing others to smear her.
- Even fellow Dem candidate Marisa DeFranco got on the bozo bus, apparently loaded with desperation, with such stupid comments as you have to look like a minority to be one.
Long before this latest media-catalyzed smokescreen and disgrace, we knew the disingenuous, manipulative nature of Brown and his winger wingmen. The first came when they pounced on the “elite hick” humorous comment.
Alas, that has set the tone. Occasionally from DeFranco, and generally from Brown, Pulitzer-hungry papers, and Brown’s surrogates (think MA GOP, winger super PACS, highly partisan righty bloggers) present distractions as substance and real issues as invisible.
Every once and awhile, an article has some insight such as in today’s NYT. While it does contain a lie from DeFranco about how she hasn’t gone after the Cherokee jive, the Times also has such fair, smart comments in a blog as:
“It says to me that they’re not good on defense, they’re not good in panic mode and they lack a clear, consistent message,” Ms. DeFranco said of Ms. Warren’s campaign.
Plainly, DeFranco is beside herself in her flurry to get 15% of Dem delegates next week at the convention to advance to the September party primary. She seems to have a bit carried away by joining in the Native American junk.
For her part, Warren’s big blunder has been in trying to sidestep democracy by marginalizing other Dem candidates for the office by refusing joint public appearances. That level of cynicism is far below Brown’s, but not in keeping with her straight-talking image.
Regardless of whether there’s a Dem primary, it’s time for substance. The local papers have sunk so low, they may remained mired. Brown and his surrogates are serious muckers. It’ll be up to Warren to be the smart, honest, ethical person on the dais.
Note: I started this before my recent bike crash. It’s less detailed and documented than I’d prefer. You’ll have to search for sources. This appears at Marry in Massachusetts.
Hate the Herald and Globe all you want – but this is a legitemate issue to those who believe in affirmative action. Democrats can not stand for aa except for when one white woman (or mostly white) needs to get elected to the Senate. When Bill Clinton was accused of sexual harassment – those who believed in women’s rights were destroyed by sticking up for him despite his admission to having sex with a intern. Do you want that to happen to aa?
She’s addressing the issues that matter, and you are doing your candidate no favors by continuing to harp on this non-issue.
You are right that I disdain the local papers’ sensationalism. I also called for EW to stop refusing joint public appearances.
She is intellectually solid and an often charismatic speaker. She should have been going to every forum, and now it’s just two Dems, she should have agreed to DeFranco’s debate challenges.
This is your tell. You just gave the game away. You’re either a DeFranco supporter trying to muddy the waters or a paid Scott Brown sock puppet. You lose.
What petr said.
This person is actually a DeFranco supporter.
Seems a little too concern-troll-y to me. Eric? Eric is that you??
by virtue of being a woman. Women were under represented. Everyone involved in hiring her said that she was hired for the work that she had done. The fact is that even in big companies, at the point when AA was strongest – in the 1970s – there were no quotas for Native Americans.
I hope and assume that this is not the kind of journalism the folks that hand out Pulitzers are looking for.
Bluemax, she’s addressed the issue. I pasted in an email I received the other day. You can click my name and search recent comments of mine, but I’m not going to repost it for every trollish comment.
seem to be getting a bit testy. Present an alternative view and you are “either a DeFranco supporter trying to muddy the waters or a paid Scott Brown sock puppet”. Elizabeth isn’t wading in muddy water at the moment, but rather is slogging in a swamp of denial. Marisa is an honest and fresh alternative.
what this kerfuffle has to do with affirmative action (the issue raised above), your comment would make a lot more sense. And, to head off your initial salvo, there is absolutely no evidence that Warren has ever benefited, or tried to benefit, from anything like affirmative action, and there is plenty of evidence to the contrary. So that argument is a non-starter.
😉
I do think this “concerted effort” by multiple people saying the same thing isn’t even coming from the DeFranco camp.
(If you are actually DeFranco supporters, wow. I feel sorry for DeFranco…)
I think this is an attempt to PRETEND there’s this big divide for the sake of creating one, by the Brown camp.
Are you sure these are not from the same IP, David?
Brown’s supporters are plain vicious and generally emotional. I do think that both Warren and DeFranco handled aspects less than timely and less than optimally, but this is not about their small blunders.
I expected the Brownies’ shenanigans, even the Herald’s. No one else’s…