Over at The Other McCain, we get a powerful take-down by the Author himself, William Jacobson, and David Harsanyi. Anyone of those three could have performed the take-down, but combine all three and what you get is a Fisking of Pocahonky*.
A few highlights…
William ‘The Prof’ Jacobson:
Elizabeth Warren is not Native American. Her ancestry has been traced by Cherokee genealogists back to the early 1800s, as far back as there are records, and there are no Native American ancestors.
The one potential Native American ancestor was Warren’s great great great grandmother, Sarah O.C. Smith, but an initial 2012 report about that was debunked and The Boston Globe was forced to issue a retraction….
David Harsanyi:
When her supposed Native American heritage came under scrutiny during her first Senate bid, Warren presented a recipe she had published in her cousin’s cookbook as evidence of her background. It was signed “Elizabeth Warren — Cherokee.” Later we learned that even the recipe was taken verbatim from an article in The New York Times five years earlier.
Stacy:
…She claims that her parents eloped because of anti-Indian prejudice in Oklahoma: “My daddy’s parents, the Herrings, were bitterly opposed to their marrying because my mother’s family, the Reeds, was part native American.” Whether or not her paternal grandparents were “bitterly opposed” to her father marrying her mother, it could not have been because the Reeds were “part native American,” as a 1/32nd non-white ancestry (i.e., 96.9% white) would not be apparent and, contrary to her telling, the remote ancestor she claimed was Cherokee was identified as white in census records. If the Senator is asserting that her father’s parents were extraordinarily ignorant, we’ll take her word for it, but this tells us nothing about the alleged ancestry of her mother’s side of the family.
That, and the rest that can be found over at TOM, covers it pretty well, so do head over there and read the whole bloody thing.
I’d like to focus on a bigger issue…
This is a great example of how you — you conservative or Classical Liberal you — are not even being considered in what action Warren took.
First of all: she’s playing to her base. They are looking for any excuse to let this issue slip away into the Ash Heap Of False Claims By The Left. Pocahonky’s base, which she believes to be the young [under forty years old], is either so Goddamn Stupid that they’ll buy this line, hook-line-and-sinker, or they’ll gladly except her explanation as being Definitive — end-of-story — and they’ll keep chanting it louder and louder until, they hope, we give up.
Second of all: she’s playing to the Ignorant Middle [but I repeat myself]. These are the people who only pay attention once every four years, who look [unconsciously] for the ‘right’ buzz words that make their hearts flutter and their minds skip-a-beat. Words like ‘let the government take care of it’.
So…don’t even bother to argue with Pocahonky.
She’s not listening.
And neither is the rest of the Left.
Let us get our own act in order and, also, ask ourselves a few pointed questions that boil-down to two topics: what can we do to arm ourselves against such madness and what is it in our Souls that allows us to think of them as Fellow Americans.
____________________________________________
*That is Jeff Goldstein’s [@proteinwisdom] term and I like it.