Left's Cavalry Not Riding to Warren's Rescue

The media has chosen the Memorial Day weekend to finally address the deepening scandal surrounding Elizabeth Warren’s claim of Native American ancestry. The Boston Globe, which had ignored the story for weeks, ran a front-page story using much of the information first reported here at Breitbart News. And this weekend, Politico featured a story on the controversy, focusing on the competition between Boston’s two daily papers, The Herald and The Globe. What’s most interesting though is what hasn’t happened; Democrat leaders rallying to Warren’s defense. 

One year ago this week, Breitbart News broke the story of then-Rep. Anthony Weiner tweeting lewd pictures of himself to a female follower. Democrat politicians and pundits leaped immediately to Weiner’s defense, claiming that the twitter photos were an elaborate hoax to frame the Democrat. As the scandal grew over the subsequent weeks, Weiner’s explanations became less and less plausible. Eventually, he admitted that he was responsible for sending the lewd photos and eventually resigned from Congress. 

Since this scandal broke weeks ago, Warren’s explanations have followed a pattern similar to those of Weiner. And, as the Weiner scandal became more serious as new pictures emerged, Warren’s scandal is becoming more serious as the role of Harvard Law School in perpetuating Warren’s claims is coming under scrutiny. Its probably no wonder, then, that no prominent national Democrats are rushing to Warren’s defense. They don’t want to be Weiner-ized.

A couple of weeks ago, professor and Native American David Treuer argued in The Washington Post that if Warren says she’s Native American, then she is. He went on:

Regardless of why Warren claimed minority status (she said she did it in hopes of meeting people with similar heritage), to be a woman from Oklahoma of working-class upbringing — and to want not only to walk the halls of power but to help build them — you have to press whatever advantage you have. Doing so might seem distasteful to those who’ve never had to do it because they were born into privilege and power.

At best, that is rather tepid support. 

Remember, Warren is not just your average Senate candidate, she is a lioness to the political left. She was tapped by Barack Obama to design and create the Consumer Financial Protection Agency in the aftermath of the financial sector meltdown. She has been heralded as an intellectual champion on the financial industry and was widely seen as the natural fit to head the agency she created. And yet, in the face of GOP opposition, Obama dropped her and nominated Richard Cordray instead. Cordray also faced stiff GOP opposition, so what caused the White House to drop their support of Warren? Do they know something we don’t?

Holly Robichaud wonders about this in today’s Boston Herald:

Don’t take my word on it. Take President Obama’s. Last summer, Obama refused to nominate Fauxcahontas to head up the new Consumer Federal Protection Bureau. She was sidelined for Ohio Attorney General Richard Cordray. Maybe if she hadn’t deleted the reference to her phony Native American status, Obama would have chosen her.

As Vice President Joe Biden would say, Lizzy being snubbed is a “big (expletive) deal.” She dreamed up the consumer agency and built it. The White House’s reason for failing to nominate Fauxcahontas is due to a belief she could not get confirmed by the Senate. Maybe we now know why.

Robichaud’s column also raises another potentially serious problem for Warren; she may face a primary challenge. Next month, Massachusetts Democrat’s hold their state convention. Immigration lawyer Marisa DeFranco has qualified for the convention. If she can get support from just 15% of state delegates, she and Warren will face off in a September primary. 

That’s a long enough time to find out what the White House knew about Warren and when they knew it. The silence of national Democrats to defend Warren isn’t likely to evolve into support of the embattled candidate as new facts emerge. But, it could evolve into full vocal support for DeFranco if their hopes of victory slip away.