Scott Brown may be the Senate candidate you’d most like to have a beer with, but three of his aides looked like frat brothers after a keg party when they tomahawk-chopped and war-whooped their disapproval of Elizabeth Warren at a campaign rally. The gestures were meant to ridicule her having identified herself as part Native American at various points in her academic career. The issue appeared to have crested last spring, but Brown has eagerly revived it. That’s his right, but the tomahawk chops and war whoops were insulting to all Native Americans, who have fought for years against such stereotypical portrayals by sports fans. Brown was quick to say he didn’t condone the actions of his aides, but then swiftly tried to put the focus back on Warren. A firmer condemnation of such childish behavior would be more appropriate.
editorial
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He had his wife apologize for him....says a lot about his priorities. This defnitely is a reflection of the culture of his staff..very sad
As Gov. Patrick observed yesterday, one wonders what the staff is doing behind closed doors?Almost certainly playing lacrosse(with whoops of joy with each score-sounding suspiciously like Indian war whoops), giving each other Indian burns to be annoying, playing Indian whist or reading "The French and Indian Wars" during their quiet times , and riding home on their Indian motorcycles at the end of the day.They are doubtlessly a shifty lot.
As usual Sen Brown pushes his family into the fray on his behalf. For such a powerful looking man he is an invertebrate.
He came out and apologized, where have you been.
Two days later after the Chief of the Cherokee Nation let him know it was indeed offensive and pretty sophmoric to boot. We can judge from their "harsh punishment" that the staff will get the big message. Except it will be from their boss, not this tribal leader.
TOO LITTLE, TOO LATE.
Just your average Brown supporters having a little fun. I mean, what's the harm, we're just talking about Indians, right? I've got an Indian friend and he's totally OK with the'chop!
um, sarcasm, right? just checking.
Hopefully, now that Sen. Brown has chastised his staff,you are sastisfied.Of course, as the Senator pointed out, the true insult here arises from the Professor's phony paterlineal claim and is seconded by the soft-headed editorial approach of the Globe, which condemns the messenger while glorifying the miscreant.A firmer condemnation of Ms. Warren's self-serving claims would be more appropriate.
You are correct, he should have condemned it and he did. Senator Scott P. Brown’s campaign issued a statement Wednesday evening saying he “regrets” what he called “unacceptable” behavior by some staff members who participated in the tomahawk chops and Indian war whoops at a campaign rally. He also issued a verbal warning to those staff members who took part — and to all of his staff — that such conduct would not be tolerated, according to a statement from his office. http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/09/26/cherokee-chief-demands-scott-brown-apologize-for-supporters-actions/
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Since one of these guys is a lawyer working with Scott Brown's contituents, some of whom are Native Americans, it is outrageous he would behave that way and even more outrageous that he was not fired. These are Scott Browns constituents and there is one of his PAID staffers making fun of the very people Brown is there to serve. Disgusting.
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Senator Brown did condemn their actions as soon as he heard about it.
Sorry he was 2 days late with his statement. It finally came out after the big meeting with Eric Fernstrom et al.
I'm sorry, he did not. He said he did not condone the actions of his paid staff and supporters. Here are his words:
Brown has routinely attacked Warren for her Native American ancestry, and claimed that he could tell that she isn’t Native American just by looking at her. Brown was asked about the staffer’s actions, but rather than solidly condemning them, stated that the real offense was in Warren listing herself as Native American and, about the staffer’s actions “That’s not something I condone."
He did not condone, but he also did not condemn and that makes all the difference.
He had the same problem with Jeff Perry in the recent strip search incident involving a young girl. He stayed with Perry until the end! Ah, Republicans. They care so much for people while they are a glint in their mother's eye, but after they are born....not so much.
http://www.capecodtoday.com/blogs/index.php/2012/08/23/scott-brown-how-phony-do-you-need-him-to?blog=214
where was the editorial from Globe suggesting that Obama condemn the granny going over the cliff commercial or the assertion that Rommney was responsible for death of a woman who died from cancer after her husband was laid off? If those instances are different, it would certainly be nice to know how they're different!!!
Gee you haven't got a kitchen sink big enough to try to get off the subject of Scott Brown's offense to our original citizens. It will stand and Sen Brown will pay the political price for it.
They're different because what Brown's staffers did was racist. If American Indians have a problem with Warren's alleged claiming to be one of them, they have not been nearly as vocal about it as they have been about condemning the behavior at their rally. It wasn't just an attack on Warren and her campaign. It was inappropriate and unacceptable.
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This story is another feather in the cap for Liz. Oops, sorry, I didn't mean to refer to another Indian slur.
Saying you don't condone something is miles away from condemning it. There should have been consequences for the aides who did this but instead they were just told to not do it again. That is a very, very weak response to some very, very reprehensible actions that have strong racist overtones.
Is it "racist" to mock someone that claims to be a "woman of color" when she has zero proof of that claim?
...and supporting a candidate who falsely claimed minority status to gain a career advantage goes way beyond "condoning" -- more like, "turning a blind eye." But then, Democrats have a lot of practice at ignoring their candidates' serious moral and ethical flaws (see: Kennedy, Ted; Studd, Gerry; Frank, Barney...).
The soil in Wrentham is still red from the blood of Metacomet and his peoples who were massacred because the emnity and strife between the colonialists and the native peoples. Prior to that war, Colonialists and native Americans appreaciated that respecting each other in peace would be a better than bloodshed. After that war and the slaughter of so many, colonialist whites in the area have perpetrated myths of native Americas as deceitful, dirty, cruel, crass, and all the other stereotypes that are still just below the surface in some peoples minds. As a crafty Boston College Law school trained trial lawyer, Brown knows that "Injun-bashing" is unseamly, so he cynically distances himself from it. But through his ads he keeps pounding away at it. His sanctioned ad campaign, as clearly evidenced by his aids' behavior, wants us all to think that Warren is really a deceitful, shrill, stupid, little excuse of a woman. Is this the personality of someone who really works "across the aisle", and builds on the best ideas of all people in Massachusetts for the benefit and interest of all in Massachusetts? Or is this the personality of curlish little frat-boy from the wrong side of the tracks who wants to impress and attain a stature that he really doesn't deserve?
So Liz Warren can pretend to be an Indian but her detractors can not mock her for it?!? Which is more insulting again? Interesting that Native Americans have been protesting half of Liz Warren's events for months and months and protesting that she won't meet with them to hear their complaints about her lies, and can never get the attention of the meida and can't get any press for their efforts... yet suddenly after months of the media going out of their way to ignore Native Americans who are upset about Liz, suddenly that same media has all the time and space in the world now that a guy who was on the floor of the DNC for the Democrats complains about a mocking Indian chant directed to a fraud! Suddenly, one native American can have all the press he needs to complain about Scott Brown... while ignoring the thousands of other voices in the same tribe who want Liz to fess up to her lie! The Globe loses credibility every day. Day after day.
You don't get it. It was only after the Chief of the Cherokee Nation wrote a rough letter to Scott Brown did he come out with a garbled apology. Apparently the head of the tribe thought it was offensive. It is he who should take issue with not Prof Warren.
The problem is, I DO get it....
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I see the Globe's indignation coordinator has been putting in some serious ovetime trying turn this bit of petty foolishness into an issue to beat Brown with. With all that it seems the only people who care are those who will be voting for Warren (or any warm body with a D next to the ballot) anyhow.
This is not "petty foolishness." What Brown's staffers did was racist. It's not only offensive to Warren and her campaing, but also American Indians. It shows amazing insensitivity, poor judgment, and childishness. It also shows us that the man who employees these folks, who are paid with our tax dollars, is not fit to represent the people of this state. At the very least, those staffers should have been terminated immediately. Nothing less than that, in addition to a public apology, is acceptable.
It's hardly "petty foolishness" when Brown continues to spend significant advertising money on more of his "Warren is a shrill little indian phony" ads. Clearly his staff is seriously hooked on pushing the "don't vote the stupid little faux indian" theme at rallies and paid advertising. If Brown campaign was really about trying to establish Brown as a cross party coalition builder who will broadly represent the interests of Massachusetts, it would not be engaged in this kind of puerile and racist nonsense. Indeed he would quickly distance himself from them. But he doesn't. Gail Huff appears to have more decency and grace, but she's not running the campaign.
I would like to know where those who assert that Warren lied about her heritage, and 'falsely laid claim to Native American heritage for her own financial gain' are getting their facts? Where is their proof? They seem to demand concrete proof from her, but yet base their own assertions on nothing other than the way she looks, and what they themselves suppose to be the truth. Those who are buying in to Scott Brown's campaign accusations against Warren are not only misguided, but are ignoring the racist underpinnings of these assertions. Brown's campaign against Warren has been based on trumped up fabrications by him and meant to fuel the resentment against affirmative action, however faint a whiff, while simultaneously making it acceptable to bash someone for their heritage. There should be more outrage against Brown for his racist references to Warren, implying her skin color and blond hair alone is enough to tell us all that she is not only not Native American, but a liar and an opportunist as well. If Brown were truly a class act, he would accept responsibility for the racist thugs who work for him, apologize publicly to Warren for their behavior, and cease the inflammatory rhetoric that leads people to racist mob mentality.
Whether or not Betsy Warren really is 1/32 Cherokee is the least interesting and least relevant part of this whole tawdry story. She denies checking the box in order to advance her career but it sure looks like that is exactly what she did. Her explanation for why she checked the box in the first place is laughable: "I wanted to meet other people like me, get invited to luncheons." Fine, but she never sought out any Indian people or groups at any school at which she taught, so her explanation is not remotely credible. In a court of law, proof is demanded. In the court of public opinion, however, a preponderance of the evidence shows that she told a whopper, thought she'd gotten away with it, was totally unprepared to be challenged on it, and fumbled her way through a clumsy lie to explain it away, and now she's stuck with the clumsy lie.
he did
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I firmly condemn box checking affirmative action scams which the perpetrator then lies about.
Since the beginning of this maufactured contraversy the Brown campaign and its tea party fans have demonstrated that they don't understand English well. A "lie" is a an assertion of something known or believed by the speaker to be untrue with INTENT to deceive. Regardless of Elizabeth Warren's ability to demonstrate objective proof of her heritage she did not lie because she believes what her parents told her. Get that-- A lie requires intent.
On the issue of proof, if that critical in matters regarding family history where is Brown's proof that he was an abused child and adolescent? He doesn't look abused. Yet no one is calling him a liar. And do you know why? Because people have enough class to accept as true what he has said about his family.
Warren did represent a Massachusetts client in Massachusetts on a Massachusetts legal issue.
"The case was [a 2001] appeal in the First Circuit Court of Appeals in Boston in the case of Cadle Company v. Schlictmann.
"The case involved a dispute as to a lien on a contingent fee earned by Beverly, Massachusetts lawyer Jan R. Schlichtmann, who was the subject of the film A Civil Action. The issue in the case was whether a creditor or Schlictmann was entitled to the contingency fee earned in a case which started prior to Schlictmann’s personal bankruptcy but did not conclude until long after the bankruptcy.”
Blogger Mark Thompson at the League of Ordinary Gentleman, who had been Ms. Warren's most ardent defender until this new revelation, has changed his mind about Jacobson's argument that Ms. Warren has engaged in the unlicensed practice of law in Massachusetts:
What does this have to do with Brown's staff's outrageous, inappropriate, and unacceptable behavior?
This has NOTHING to do with Brown's staff's outrageous, inappropriate, and unacceptable behavior. Also, it has NOTHING to do with what is clearly Brown's amoral character, as he clearly wants to win the election through any means possible, beginning with groundless character assassination. This is simply another paid plant to try to disparage Warren's character by alleging that Warren improperly represented a client in Massachusetts. But the grounds given for impropriety are fallacious. The case was in a Federal Appelate Court where Warren was arguing under Federal law (bankruptcy), so the fact that Warren may not have been admitted to the Mass. Bar at that time does not, ipso facto, bar her from presenting argument. Also, Federal Appelate Courts are not stupid; they will only accept argument from properly certified counsel.
From the article "Brown was quick to say he didnt condone the actions of his aides." Evidently that not enough, they should have been fired? Seems like a bunch of people being obnoxious to each other, notice the warren signs in the background. Two groups, one teasing the other, or most likely both teasing eachother. If they wore pinochio noses would the libs be saying brown was attacking puppeteers? Its always something with them to get out of admitting a mistake.
Warren misrepresents herself as a minority. Somethign that could give her an edge in hiring or other employment matters. Couple Brown staffers do the same thing sports fans do for any number of football or baseball games around the country (I think the chop and whooping is childish and petty no matter who is doing it). Guess which one the leftnuts get themselves worked up in a right good sanctimonious lather over? You just can't make stuff this funny up....
I was on the fence on whom to vote for. But not anymore. Brown's continued campaign of distortion and lies about the Native American stuff will make me vote for Warren.
Brown has been apologizing and issueing statements saying he does not condone this kind of behavior but his staff and advisors, Fehrnstrom among them, have been doing this kind of thing for years. The big problem of course, is that Brown does not CONDEMN what they do or say and the people involved are not even given a slap on the wrist! Here is a quick video of Brown's mentality, in his own words, and what he thinks of the problem. Hint: think of the kid caught with his hand in the cookie jar or "the devil made me do it." And THIS is a US Senator? We can do much, much better with Elizabeth Warren. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oBa-1TQHN54
When did Brown apologize? When asked, in reference to his staff's behavior, he said it was Warren who needed to apologize. Now he says he spoke to them and told them they were bad - and STILL didn't apologize.
This stuff starts at the top.
And why were Washington staffers at that rally anyway? Why weren't they in DC working? The business of a Senate office doesn't stop when the Senator is campaigning,and if these guys are on the Senate payroll they should not have been campaigning!
Who cares what Brown says? He lies constantly...it's like lying is a Republican disease with Brown, Romney, et al... Forget what he says; take a look at his voting record...whoops! There goes his whole "bipartisan" shtick. Repubs = Liars 'R Us...
The behavior was dumb, and Brown was right to privately and publically reprimand those who engaged in it. On the other hand, though, why were large numbers of Warren signholders provocatively crowding around and chanting at a Brown campaign appearance? And more importantly, why can't people recognize that the chops/whoops were meant to be nothing more than comical comments on Warren's admitted, silly past statements that she is Native American and a "woman of color"? All candidates choose to become public figures, and their characters are evidenced by their past conduct and statements, as well as their campaign personas. Warren is stuck with who she has been, not just who she wants to be. If someone finds that amusing, it's part of the price of public engagement. The choppers/whoopers were making fun of Elizabeth Warren, not of Native Americans.
Apparently Scott Brown does not realize that the actions of his aides directly reflect upon him. It says alot when his only action is to reprimand. He should have fired them. They insulted a whole race, not just Warren.
It must be great to be a liberal democrat. Specifically here in Mass. Granted it was in bad taste. But imagine if it was the other way around. Probably wouldn't hear a peep. The Globe always answers the bell when it serves their politics and beliefs. Incredible.
Gail Huff apologized in the Boston media on Wednesday...not Scott Brown????? This is representative of the culture of his office and staff, those that support him in his decision-making and in operations...very sad...and not senatorial. As an educator.....I particularly do not find this funny. We would suspend a student for such behavior...but what is the consequence for these adults. Shame on Senator Brown for having these guys on staff.
How?