Just when you thought the Elizabeth Warren controversy couldn’t get any more disastrous, Breitbart’s Michael Patrick Leahy reports on yet another bizarre plot twist:
For over a quarter of a century, Elizabeth Warren has described herself as a Native American. When recently asked to provide evidence of her ancestry, she pointed to an unsubstantiated claim on an 1894 Oklahoma Territory marriage license application by her great-great grand uncle William J. Crawford that his mother, O.C. Sarah Smith Crawford, Ms. Warren’s great-great-great grandmother, was a Cherokee. …
But the most stunning discovery about the life of O.C. Sarah Smith Crawford is that her husband, Ms. Warren’s great-great-great grandfather, was apparently a member of the Tennessee Militia who rounded up Cherokees from their family homes in the Southeastern United States and herded them into government-built stockades in what was then called Ross’s Landing (now Chattanooga), Tennessee—the point of origin for the horrific Trail of Tears, which began in January 1837.
Notably, Warren hasn’t denied the story, instead dismissing it as a distraction and “politics as usual.” If she was actually aware of this ancestry beforehand, it might explain her frenzied, stumbling response to the controversy from the beginning. With a bombshell like that dangling over her head, it’s no wonder she was evasive about her history.
At the very least, the development will help keep the controversy alive, and increase pressure on Warren to release more information about her minority status claims. Sen. Scott Brown is now calling on Warren to release her law school applications:
“Serious questions have been raised about the legitimacy of Elizabeth Warren’s claims to Native American ancestry and whether it was appropriate for her to assume minority status as a college professor,” the statement said.
“The best way to satisfy these questions is for Elizabeth Warren to authorize the release of her law school applications and all personnel files from the various universities where she has taught.”
The death-by-a-thousand-cuts scandal harkens back to Attorney General Martha Coakley’s downfall when she ran against Brown for Senate in 2010. In many senses, Warren is a stronger candidate than Coakley was. She’s been able to build more of a national profile and is considered a rising progressive star, whereas Coakley was never really able to energize the liberal base. But Coakley’s demise also wasn’t due to any overwhelming flaws as much as it was due to a number of small-scale mishaps that played into the sense she was an out-of-touch elitist who didn’t want to smudge her manicured shaking hands outside Fenway Park.
The growing narrative about Warren, on the other hand, is that she’s an ivory tower liberal with some shady character flaws. This latest Trail of Tears development also makes her something of a punchline, similar to how Coakley became a running joke after she cluelessly claimed former Red Sox pitcher and Brown supporter Curt Schilling was a Yankee fan. While the Coakley’s meltdown happened shortly before Election Day, Warren still has time to repair her image. But her window of opportunity is quickly closing, and the drip-drip of details like this will make it difficult for her to turn things around.
But Paul Reed, a Utah genealogist who is a fellow at the American Genealogical Society, said he found primary documentation that shows Warren’s great-great-great grandfather Jonathan Crawford served in a Tennessee militia unit that rounded up Cherokees before they were force-marched to Oklahoma in the infamous “Trail of Tears.” “Jonathan H. Crawford did serve in the Indian wars,” said Reed. “He is listed as serving in the company that rounded up Cherokees.” n negads! lizzy warren's family with a DOCUMENTED history of participating in genocide! oh my! oh my! n
Considering Warren's tendency to soft tyranny (i.e. Liberalism), this revelation about her ancestry isn't surprising at all.
Did William J. Crawford own slaves? What side did he fight on during the Civil War?
Wow….. n
Well, based upon the Tennessee militia vs. Cherokee logic, if it was for the South that should allow Elizabeth to claim African-American blood as well….
"My great-great-great-grandmother was an Indian, so I'm an Indian." n nHas anyone asked the Indians what they think about that? n n
As a Choctaw/Cherokee/Chickasaw/etc.-mix-with-assorted-white ancestry person, it depends on the tribe. For example, the Otoe-Missouria only recently decided that 1/8th Otoe was enough to be an Otoe. For the Five Civilized Tribes (the three aforementioned tribes plus Creek and Seminote), plus many others, you have to be able to trace your ancestry back to somebody on the Dawes Commission roles, and any amount makes you whatever tribe you are descended from. For someone like me, with a dozen different tribes on the family tree (that we know of), it gets pretty strange. I have more ancestry from some tribes that won't recognize me as a member than I have from other tribes that will.
Can we call Elizabeth Warren's Indian ancestor a "Kapo"? n nI'm not going to compare the "Trail of Tears" to the Holocaust but I will compare it to the Bataan Death March, one with pregnant women and children being amongst those marched and not faring all so well in the course of the trip. n nDrip, drip, drip — I think it is all over for her… n nAnd as to "Trail of Tears" — this was the case (I think it was Cherokee Nation v. Georgia) that led to Andrew Jackson saying "John Marshall has made his decision, now let's see him enforce it." n nI wonder how that would make a law professor look….
According to Rasmussen, Warren gained two points against Brown today to break out of the tie they were in. It doesn't seem to be affecting her a bit.
Most likely will help her, BO has proven his base really doesn't like to think too hard about what's right or wrong.
Thank God for the Boston Herald! Thank God for alternative media! For the first time since WW2, the right can communicate with the people without having to go through the Globe, the Times, the Post, etc. Also, thank God for the internet, which is destroying the lgacy media's business model.
Well, she may not be able to count on the Indian vote in MA now.
The lady doth be well & truly hoist on her own petard, methinks.
well played
What Elizabeth Warren did, once again reminds the white working class in MA (and anywhere else they're reading about it) of how affirmative action is shafting them. n nIt was bad enough when affirmative action moved blacks and other minorities to the head of the line even when whites had stronger qualifications. n nBut here's a case of a blonde, blue-eyed white woman claiming minority status just because she *heard* that her great-great-great-great-grandmother was Cherokee. Unless that's a unique case (which I doubt), it suggests that the entire affirmative-action program is shot through with corruption and fraud: Any white-looking person can claim affirmative-action benefits by digging through his geneology to find somebody, anybody, who was a member of a minority group. n nThat's exactly the type of thing to infuriate the white working class. It reminds them of how modern liberals have dumped them in favor of identity politics with blacks, Hispanics, illegal aliens, feminists and gays. n nAnd that's why they won't vote for Elizabeth Warren. They don't like affirmative-action babies. n nAnd neither do I.
What happened to "equal justice under the law" or " … being judged by the content of your charecter."? Liz Warren took an axe to her own credibility and demolished it.
If I lived in Massachusetts I would vote for Scott Brown. However, I think this uproar over Warren's Cherokee ancestry is ridiculous. If one of her great grandfathers served in a southern militia that rounded up Indians for deportation, that was a shameful thing to do, but Ms. Warren can hardly be held responsible for the actions of a remote ancestor. She has nothing to apologize for on that score. On the other hand, if she falsely presented herself as an Indian, when she has only 1/33 Indian ancestry, that's another matter, especially if she derived some benefit from it in the form of being hired or promoted.
I think that it goes to the fact that she's a fraud. Really, how could you trust someone who fraudulently obtained minority preferential treatment– and then stopped listing herself as a minority once it no longer benefited her? It goes to the core of who she is– a complete and total liar.
It is unclear whether she received a benefit or not, but it is true that her claim of being "Native American" on her employment application is tenuous and misleading at best, even if true, and downright fraudulent if not.
"Ms. Warren can hardly be held responsible for the actions of a remote ancestor?" Bulls#&t! Every white skinned person in America is held accountable for the past sin of slavery: whether or not one can trace their respective heritage to slave holding Europeans. I'm half white and half latin and both of my parents came from abroud. I hear how guilty I'm supposed to feel d%#n near every day!
Ohhhhh, she wishes she could be black but she can't. She can only be her self. Liberals love to use race when the rest of us don't think about it and really don't care.
Liz Warren is just another Liberal who wants to impose laws on others while exempting herself in the tradition of teddy Kennedy, John Kerry, John Edwards, Anthony Wiener to name the more recent ones. Hosted on her own petard.
Did she invent the Cherokee alphabet?
The Reinhardt Heydrich Institute Of Ethnic Studies has measured Ms. Warren's skull and tested her cheekbones for altitude and has declared her to be an honorary Cherokee. The Heydrich Institute also has granted a special achievement award to William J. Crawford for his notable work in ethnic adjustment. This is Massachusetts, after all. The state that reelected the guy who stood on his girlfriend's face to get out of the sinking car and instead of phoning for help phoned his lawyer to concoct a cover story while she suffocated in an air bubble. This is the state who reelected a congressman who ran a gay brothel from his condo and who was an avatar of a 'fair housing' scheme that tanked the US economy and left us in a 4-year depression. The state who reelects an anti-war radical who lied to get medals and who described the draftees in Viet Nam as being worse than the soldiers of Genghis Khan. People in Mass. will vote for any half-wit criminal as long as that D follows his or her name on the ballot.
Facts matter — it was Barney Frank's BOYFRIEND who was running the prostitution ring. What Frank did was in some ways worse — "not know about it" (How do you not know?!?), got his parking tickets "fixed", and lied to probation on behalf of boyfriend. n nFrank did enough that we don't need to exaggerate….
Take the racially-coded check-boxes off of job applications – problem solved. America really is ready, I think, to try actually having just one standard for everybody.
So Warren listed herself as a "Native American" because her ancestor(s) rounded up the Cherokees for "resettlement"; and Barack Obama lists himself as "African American" because his ancestors hunted African slaves and sold them to plantation owners. nMaybe these two could get together for a BBQ; split a dog; reminisce.
Clearly this story is just a hatchet job. Oops, I meant to say tomahawk job! Someone's just trying to Swift-boat Warren. Oops, I meant to say Swift-canoe!
Typical liberal. Do as I say, not as I do and while your at it, “Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain”.