You got 37 days for it to go away, Joe . . .
On today's Morning Joe, Joe Scarborough said of Elizabeth Warren's candidacy:
"Am I the only person in America who thinks the Native American controversy is something that probably will not last into the spring?"
That is wishful thinking turned political prognostication. For Joe to be right, no other shoe can drop. Does Scarborough sincerely think that Warren's Texas bar registration was the only place she put herself down as "American Indian?"
The point of Warren's exercise in phony claims of indigenous identity was presumably to seek career advancement in affirmative-action addled academia. Warren somehow managed to climb the career ladder from alum of modestly-rated Rutgers law school to a professorship at Harvard. What are the odds that there is no document out there in which she laid claim to American Indian status to climb the academic ladder?
If it is revealed that Warren did indeed ride a false claim of American Indian heritage to Harvard—thereby climbing over authentic Native Americans along the way— the scandal won't be going away.
As it turns out, the answer is "no" to Joe's question as to whether he's the only one who thinks the controversy over Warren's phony Native American claims will soon go away. Morning Joe panelist Adrienne Elrod, a veteran of both of Hillary Clinton's failed presidential campaigns, enthusiastically agreed.
"Yeah, Joe. I think you're exactly right. Elizabeth Warren has done such a fantastic job of really staying on message."
Whuh? If there is anyone in contemporary American politics who has famously failed to stay on message, it is Warren. She fell for Trump's Pocahontas bait, going way off message to roll out her DNA test. Her off-message blunder has been universally panned across the political spectrum.
Bonus Coverage: Confessore Points out Paucity of Straight White Guys in Dem Field
Just before Scarborough made his "gone before spring" prediction, panel member Nick Confessore of The New York Times made this observation:
"What has really struck me, I've just got to say this, there are now a collection of candidates for this nomination and I think there's only a single straight white guy in the entire bunch."
What in turn struck me was Confessore prefacing his observation with "I've just got to say this." You sensed hesitation, a certain trepidation on Confessore's part in venturing into the perilous realm of identity politics. Somewhere out there, could Confessore have been fearing, is there some arbiter of political correctness who will find a way to be offended by his statement of undeniable fact?
A transcript is below:
MSNBC
Morning Joe
2/11/19
6:02 am ETNICK CONFESSORE: What has really struck me, Joe—and I've just got to say this—um, uh, uh, you know, that, uh, now a collection of candidates for this nomination. and I think there's only a single straight white guy in the entire bunch. Which is a real shift from any election past that we've seen, and a sign of the diversity in that party.
JOE SCARBOROUGH: It really is.
MIKA BRZEZINSKI: For sure.
SCARBOROUGH: Another woman announced earlier this weekend, Elizabeth Warren. And I'm just curious, Adrienne Elrod, how do you think her announcement was. And am I the only person in America who thinks the Native American controversy is something that probably will not last into the spring?
ADRIENNE ELROD: Yeah, Joe: I think you're exactly right. I mean, Elizabeth Warren has done such a fantastic job of really staying on message.
