The Coverage of Elizabeth Warren's Heritage Has Been Completely Distressing

From Esquire

In 1171, having conquered England and found it boring, the Norman invaders set their sights on Ireland. The king of Leinster, one Diarmud McMurrough, invited them over to help him consolidate his power. As the years went by, the Normans in Great Britain began to act more and more British in their hunger for real estate, and, with the invaluable assistance of an English pope, Ireland was gradually subsumed into what would become Great Britain. And thus were born 700 years of colonial mischief and genocidal misrule.

(The idiot English pope, Adrian IV, wanted Irish Christianity, which contained elements of the local paganism, made into a more complete theological vassal state, and what a grand legacy that turned out to be.)

Anyway, gradually, the Normans became, as is said, more Irish than the native Irish were. Their legacy lives on in their names, and in the names of their distant descendants. For example, the 35th President of the United States, the grandson of immigrants from Wexford, possessed a Norman Irish middle name, Fitzgerald, and an Irish Irish last name: Kennedy, or, in the Irish, Cinneide, translated (unfortunately) as "Helmet Head." One of the other Norman names that came to be Irish was Piaras, from the French word for Peter, "Pierre," or rock. As the years and the cultural destruction went by, the Irish adaptation of the French name was Anglicized into many forms, including "Pearce," "Piers," "Pierse," and "Pearse," as in Padraig, the brilliant and poetic lunatic who led the Easter Rising. When my grandfather walked off the Cymric in 1906, "Pierse" became "Pierce" through the magic of some immigration clerk, and here we are.

Now if, today, I were to say I have French in my ancestry, I likely would be telling the truth. If I were to say, I am an American of Irish descent, or that I had Irish ancestors, this also would be true. However, if I were to say, "I am Irish," that would be untrue. And if I were to say, "Bonjour, mes amis! Je suis Normand!", that also would be untrue. Thus, when Senator Professor Warren says, and when DNA proves, that she has some Native American ancestry, she is telling the truth. If she ever said, "I am a Native American," which she never has said, although many people including the president* have said it for her, that would be untrue. I don't know why so many people have a problem understanding this. It's almost as though they don't want to understand it, but that can't be right.

The coverage of Senator Professor Warren's effort to slap back at the president* thus far has been completely distressing. The Church of the Savvy has had its innings, which we will get to in a moment, but there also has been a dreadful amount of misunderstanding among the various white-eyes on cable television about the difference between genetic ancestry and tribal membership, the latter of which SPW explicitly disclaims in the video accompanying her announcement on Monday. This is a particularly tender business because of this country's long history of committing genocide-of both the literal and cultural forms-against its Native peoples, who have every goddamn right to be touchy about even the slightest hint of cultural appropriation. (All of which, I would point out, is something with which the Irish Irish have had some experience.)

However, the folks who have been accusing SPW of having done this, particularly Chuck Hoskin, Jr., the secretary of state for the Cherokee Nation, who was all over television Monday night, are simply wrong on the merits. From Time:

If SPW had done any of this, Hoskin would have a point. Except that she did not "lay claim" to anything except some Native ancestry and, on this point, DNA is dispositive. And we should not let it slip our minds that The Boston Globe thoroughly demolished the notion that SPW "used" her claim of Native ancestry to advance her career. Which brings us, sadly, into the sanctuary of The Church of the Savvy, and today's reading is from the Book of Stupid.

If there's one big problem with the elite political media, it's that too damn many of its members think themselves to be political consultants, and most of them are really bad at it. (Some members of it, particularly on TV, are actual political consultants, and many of them are bad at both jobs.) Ever since SPW released that video on Monday, the choir has been at full throat. Here are some highlights.

First, from The Washington Post:

This is one of those passages that makes me wonder if the author ever has crossed paths with actual human beings who vote. Is there a mass of people out there in the country who are thinking, "Geez, I was going to canvass for Heidi Heitkamp today but I'm too distracted by Elizabeth Warren's genome to get out out of bed?"

This idiocy was echoed by Democratic consultant Jim Messina, who is one of Barack Obama's least valuable contributions to American politics and/or the Democratic Party. Quoted by Kimberly Atkins in The Boston Herald:

Perhaps because their putative wise men traffic in complete horse-race banalities? Our lines are open. This is a free call.

But, when it comes to meatheaded hot takes, why not go to the home office at CNN?

Remember what I said about reporters who think they're political consultants? Chris Cillizza is the poster child for that phenomenon. (How do we know a tactic is a "swing and a miss" in the context of 2020 when it's still 2018? Because the president* will lie and stamp his feet and lie some more about it? Because it might come up in a primary debate a year and a half from now? Stay away from the track, Chris.) It's long past time for Democratic candidates, and the party they represent, to stop worrying about how the Republicans and their flying-monkey base will react to what those Democratic candidates do or say.

I am reminded of the account in Horace Porter's book about campaigning with Ulysses S. Grant of how sick Grant was of hearing his officers worry about what Robert E. Lee was going to do.

You can't run a campaign-military or political-with an attitude like that. After all, absent direct confrontation, what would be SPW's other options? Ignore the smears and calumny? Ask Presidents Dukakis, Kerry, and Hillary Rodham Clinton how that worked out.

(In his remarkable new memoir, Every Day Is Extra, Kerry writes quite honestly that the Swift Boat attacks on his service record were highly effective, and that it wasn't until after he lost in 2004 that he stopped caring about what other people said about him.)

Trump's goonery worked in the Republican primaries because, honestly, it turned out he was running against a passel of lightweights. It worked to keep him within three million votes of Hillary Rodham Clinton partly because of a decades-old episode of journalistic malpractice aimed at her. And that, I believe, is what all this railbird touting about what SPW did on Monday is really all about.

She is accused of "playing on Trump's field." So what? Only a child believes that there is one field on which an election is contested. And, truth be told, the elite political press has a great deal to do in defining what the "field" of play actually is. It was the elite political press that helped establish the "field" of play in 2016, even though they'd rather pull out their own fingernails than admit it. The way you win an election is that you beat the opponent on his field, on your field, and on any neutral fields that pop up during the campaign. Bill Belichick taught me that.

Simon Moya-Smith, however, is raising some actual questions that actually deserve answers, not that the woo-woo-woo chortlers of the right, or the acolytes of the Church of the Savvy, have any interest in asking or answering them. While I think Simon Moya-Smith' s unduly harsh in the way he's engaged it-again, SPW never "claimed to be Native" any more than I've "claimed to be" from Caen-and while an awful lot of the criticism of SPW from the left has to do with her declining to endorse St. Bernie in the 2016 primaries, this is a real debate on real issues, in addition to being some seriously good political journalism.

(Somebody should hire this cat as a columnist immediately, and I am dying to read his book, Your Spirit Animal Is A Jackass, which is a great title.)

Somebody should put Simon Moya-Smith on the panel for one of the 2020 debates. This is the debate we all should have, the debate in which the president* is far too ignorant to participate, the debate that the country has been putting off for several centuries, and the debate that Senator Professor Warren should-and likely would-be eager to be a part of. She doesn't need to worry about what Trump voters think. Most of them are lost anyway. But she should care what Simon Moya-Smith thinks. And I believe she does.

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