The story swirling around her, that she parlayed a family story that she's 1/32 Cherokee into a professorship at Harvard Law, reeks of liberal privilege and hypocrisy to those that have a sensitive nose for that kind of stuff. I'm a little more understanding because my family has its stories too--that the unusual shape of my eyes (and my son's eyes) came from a Cossack raping a woman ancestor, probably in Ukraine. Lovely story, isn't it? So I'm attuned to family lore as lore, not as a lie used for advancement.
Story or Non-Story?
However, to others it stinks of the special favors that the liberal diversity police hand out to minorities and those white liberals who'll talk the diversity jive and even lie to claim some of the spoils for themselves. So if you're a libertarian or conservative partisan, you may love this story.Me, I hate this story. It's a reminder of a dirty little secret in academia (which is my background), that it's hard to tell which professors are great because there's too much hype about too many of them; most of it undeserved; and all of it deeply envied by professors not benefiting from false hype. I grew up in this hot house world, and happily escaped it for industry at the first possible moment. So this has been a regrettable reminder of that world. (To be fair, it's often hard to tell which executives are good, and which only middling, which employee should get the promotion, which candidate should get the nomination, etc. So this problem isn't just a problem in academia.)
Those Little Lies
This story is also a reminder of how stupid little lies can cost you. Warren should have said that Harvard was (or might be) calling her a Native American right after she talked nationally about having a little Cherokee blood. Instead, she let the doubts surface and grow, whatever those doubts are.So what are those doubts? That Elizabeth Warren isn't qualified for her position? She has quite a resume, especially work on consumer credit and bankruptcy law. So she herself has provided the easiest ammunition to use against her, distracting from her qualifications.
It reminds me how Bill Clinton gave the Republicans their best ammunition when he got that blow job from Monica Lewinsky. No blow job, no year long distraction, no impeachment. Ms. Warren, please come clean faster, don't fight it, and don't hand anymore noisy stories to the GOP. Hopefully you and Scott Brown can get back to the issues, please!
What's really behind this plain face?
Photo: salon.com
