Elizabeth Warren: I’m Not Running For President In 2016

The junior Senator from Massachusetts has promised to serve her entire six-year term.

Elizaabeth Warren

Starting about two months ago, political pundits began to speculate, as is is their nature, that progressives for whom Hillary Clinton remains problematic politically, may look for another candidate to back in the first for the Democratic Party’s nomination, if only to push their agenda amid all the hype that is likely to surround a Hillary Clinton candidacy. For some reason, that speculation began to focus on a single person, newly minted Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren, who became something of a hero on the left when she helped put together the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau only to be denied the position of Bureau’s first director when it became clear that there was no way her nomination could make it through the Senate. Shortly thereafter, Warren returned to Massachusetts and ran for Senate against Scott Brown in a race where she received extensive support from outside Massachusetts.

For the most part, Warren has assumed the traditional role of a Freshman Senator of staying in the background, so it came as somewhat of a surprise last month when Noam Schieber wrote a longish piece in The New Republic suggesting that Warren could be a progressive alternative to Hillary Clinton in 2016. Given the seeming acceptance of Hillary Cinton’s inevitability on the left, the piece came as something of a surprise to many observers, especially those who pointed out that Warren was among the group of female Democratic Senators who had signed on to a letter urging Hillary to run for President. For the most part, Warren remained quiet while this speculation built, but yesterday she came out with a seemingly Shermanesque statement pushing back against any speculation about a Presidential run any time in the near future:

Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren said Wednesday that she will serve out her full term in the Senate and will not run for president in 2016.

“I pledge to serve out my term,” she said at a news conference in Boston, according to the Boston Herald. “I am not running for president.”

Warren was elected to the Senate last year and her term lasts through 2018.

Asked how she feels about the presidential speculation, Warren said she doesn’t mind if it helps her advance the issues she advocates for in the Senate.

“I am working as hard as I can to be the best possible senator that I can be and to fight for the things that I promised during my campaign to fight for,” she said, according to the Boston Globe. “I’m fighting for bank accountability. I’m fighting hard to help rebuild America’s middle class and I’m glad to see any possible energy put behind those fights.”

Warren’s statement had been preceded last month by one from her top fundraiser during last year’s Senate run essentially shooting down the idea of a run for President, so it shouldn’t really come as a surprise.

Obviously, politicians have made statements like this in the past only to “change their minds” at some point in the future. The most prominent example of that, of course, is the person currently sitting in the Oval Office, who had said when running for Senate in 2004 and in the years immediately thereafter that he would not be running for President. At some point, though, then Senator Barack Obama had indeed changed his mind and soon appeared on Meet The Press to explain to Tim Russert why he had done so. The rest, of course, is history.

Could the same thing happen with Warren? Somehow, I doubt it. For another, taking on Hillary in 2016 would seem to be a far more difficult task than taking her on in 2008. Back then, there was a significant part of the Democratic base that was angry with her over her vote in favor of the Iraq War and Barack Obama was able to tap into that anger to fuel what in many ways was a campaign by an outsider. This time, while there’s no doubt that Clinton would still be running as something of an insider there seems to be near universal agreement inside the Democratic Party that the 2016 nomination is Hillary’s if she wants it. Democrats are going to want to keep control of the White House in 2016 if they can and, based on all the available evidence, the best way for them to do that would be to nominate Hillary Clinton. For another, unlike Obama in 2004, Warren doesn’t seem to have an political ambitions beyond the Senate at the moment. As I’ve noted, she’s been pretty much a standard backbench freshman Senator even though, thanks to the fact that John Kerry resigned after the 2012 election to serve as Secretary of State, she is now the Senior Senator from Massachusetts.

Of course, as Jonathan Bernstein points out, what a politician like Warren says about Presidential ambitions isn’t nearly as important as what they actually do:

I have no idea whether Warren has any intention of running, but we’re not going to learn anything from her claims to the contrary at this point. When it comes to presidential runs, watch what the candidates do, not what they say.

That requires figuring out what each prospective candidate would be doing if she were in fact running. Sometimes that’s easy; visits to Iowa and New Hampshire are the traditional obvious giveaways. Sometimes it’s high-profile speeches. Sometimes it’s a book; that was the tip-off that Rick Perry was running in the 2012 cycle despite multiple denials from the Texas governor. The point here is that it may differ depending on the nomination battle context (whether or not there is a strong frontrunner, for example) and the prospective candidate’s situation — whether she already has national name recognition, whether she needs more of an introduction to important party actors and plenty more.

In that respect, at least at the moment, Warren is showing no signs of being interested in running and I’m guessing we’re not going to see any.

FILED UNDER: 2016 Election, US Politics, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Doug Mataconis
About Doug Mataconis
Doug Mataconis held a B.A. in Political Science from Rutgers University and J.D. from George Mason University School of Law. He joined the staff of OTB in May 2010 and contributed a staggering 16,483 posts before his retirement in January 2020. He passed far too young in July 2021.

Comments

  1. OzarkHillbilly says:

    She wants to fry certain specific fish, not become beholden to them.

  2. JKB says:

    There was another freshman Senator who said something similar. but it turned out he lied and the country cried.

  3. OzarkHillbilly says:

    @OzarkHillbilly: I do wonder how contributors to her re-election campaign will skew in 3 years. It will be interesting to see.

  4. rudderpedals says:

    Like Charlie Peirce said, get your own Senator ya bastids.

  5. Mikey says:

    Something about Warren rubs me the wrong way. I find her intolerably patronizing. Every time she talks, it sounds like she’s talking down to people. Maybe she intends to sound pleasant and comforting, but it comes off to me as irredeemably creepy.

    I suppose she has some good ideas, but I just can’t absorb them because of the interlocking webs of smarm and superiority.

    (I acknowledge this is simply my opinion and doesn’t mean she’s a bad Senator or would make a bad President, so don’t think I’m arguing against either of those for her. She may end up doing good things in the Senate. It’s just my gut reaction.)

  6. grumpy realist says:

    @Mikey: Well, I wanted to throw things at the radio/TV/whatever whenever I heard George W. Bush speak….

    The man came across as incredibly smarmy.

    (One of my friends, a brilliant chess player/businessman, told me that “George Bush was the stupidest person I had ever met.”)

  7. Jenos Idanian #13 says:

    So, Fauxcahontas is going to stay in her teepee? Thank God for small favors. Maybe she can write another book and commit even more academic fraud.

  8. Jenos Idanian #13 says:

    @grumpy realist: (One of my friends, a brilliant chess player/businessman, told me that “George Bush was the stupidest person I had ever met.”)

    Bush had a better GPA than John Kerry, and mastered flying an airplane – a single-seat supersonic interceptor – well-known as a “widowmaker.” Stupid people put in such aircraft usually have a very, very short life expectancy.

  9. rodney dill says:

    Wouldn’t she have the run for ‘chief’ instead of President anyway?

  10. gVOR08 says:

    @Jenos Idanian #13: GPA does not = IQ. However, W was something of a puzzle. Most people didn’t really think he had a low IQ, but he kept doing stupid things. (Invading Iraq, keeping Cheney, allowing Afghanistan to go unmanaged, etc.) Eventually it came down to “functional stupidity”. If you’re able to think things through, but you’re too lazy to do so, the end result is the same as not being able to. So W was pretty clearly functionally stupid.

  11. Dave D says:

    This is probably for the best, although I am not a fan of Hillary and I think this country deserves some new political blood in the wh. But Warren is probably going to shine best on the Banking Committee. Here’s hoping the far left and far right can team up on some banking issues and get some actual reform.

  12. Rob in CT says:

    Good. I think she can do some good right where she is.

  13. al-Ameda says:

    @Jenos Idanian #13:

    So, Fauxcahontas is going to stay in her teepee? Thank God for small favors. Maybe she can write another book and commit even more academic fraud.

    Maybe you and Dan Snyder can get together over drinks and discuss Native American jokes and changing the name of the Washington Redskins?

  14. Rob in CT says:

    Something about Warren rubs me the wrong way. I find her intolerably patronizing. Every time she talks, it sounds like she’s talking down to people. Maybe she intends to sound pleasant and comforting, but it comes off to me as irredeemably creepy.

    Incidently, this stuff matters. It may not be fair or right or whatever, but it’s a real reaction people sometimes have to other people. Part of being a successful politician is avoiding too many such reactions.

    I have this exact reaction to Bill Clinton. If I read a speech of his, I’d like it. If I listened to it, I’d have to turn it off in less than 30 seconds. I literally found his voice & delivery nauseating.

  15. Scott F. says:

    @rudderpedals:

    As Charlie Pierce also said and as Dave D touches on, the destination that would allow the greatest impact for Senator Warren is chair of the Banking Committee. The “talking down” that Mikey finds so off-putting is pretty damn delicious when it’s directed at the banking lobbyists who are so used to having their rings kissed when they come to Capitol Hill.

  16. OzarkHillbilly says:

    @Rob in CT: I know I know…. Mitch McConnell, John Boehner, Rand Paul, Ted Cruz, Paul Ryan, Marco Rubio, Eric Cantor, John McCain, James Inhofe and Tom Coburn… They all do the same to me. Even reading their speeches gives me the willies.

  17. Socraticsilence says:

    @JKB: and he was re-elected by a landslide! Hey it still rhymes.

  18. gVOR08 says:

    @Mikey: @Rob in CT: It is an issue for a politician. Maybe it matters less in Mass than elsewhere, she did get elected.

    Several years ago I called my local NPR station to make a pledge. They used the opportunity to do a little survey. Asked about one syndicated program and remarked a lot of people didn’t like it because the host sounded like he felt smarter than you. I replied I liked the show and how do you learn things if you don’t listen to people who are smarter than you?

    Seriously, how do you?

  19. James Pearce says:

    Given the seeming acceptance of Hillary Cinton’s inevitability on the left,

    Not this lefty…

    Warren never was a credible candidate and both left and right had pipe dreams of either crowning a crusader or shadowboxing a fairly limp punching bag.

  20. wr says:

    Warren should only leave the senate to accept an appointment to the Supreme Court.

  21. Mikey says:

    @gVOR08: It’s not a question of listening to someone who’s smarter–that’s something everyone should do whenever they have a chance.

    However, it’s very difficult to listen to ANYONE, smarter or not, when they come off as patronizing and condescending.

  22. Woody says:

    Aw, this is a sad day for whatever courtier media flack thought this one up.

    All sorts of deee-lish plotlines (catfight/ice v. fire/moar catfight) that wouldn’t involve actual reporting or work just went up in flames.

    I mean, the fact that middle-class retirees are about to get cashiered all over America? So boring and depressing – and who cares about them, really, they don’t provide clicks or get one mentioned in a Mike Allen column.

  23. jib10 says:

    @wr: Nope (although she would be good there). She should be Treasury secretary or even better, Chairman of the Fed. The Fed now has a lot of power to regulate banks. The Treasury always has had the power. Neither are using it since they are loaded up with wall street weasels but all it takes is someone who is willing to use the power and things could change very quickly.

  24. Rafer Janders says:

    @Woody:

    However, it’s very difficult to listen to ANYONE, smarter or not, when they come off as patronizing and condescending.

    Oooh, is it? Is it really? My, my, my, I don’t think that’s something you really need to worry your little head about, do you?

  25. rudderpedals says:

    @Scott F.: Indeed. It was only yesterday she delighted me by unmasking the plutocrats behind Third Way. If she keeps this up she’ll be the leading edge of a progressive wave.

  26. Mikey says:

    @Rafer Janders: Really? Is that even remotely necessary?

  27. OzarkHillbilly says:

    @Rafer Janders:

    My, my, my, I don’t think that’s something you really need to worry your little head about, do you?

    Being snide is so becoming.

  28. anjin-san says:

    @ Jenos

    So, Fauxcahontas is going to stay in her teepee?

    If only there was a person of quality and character out there for you to look up to and admire. Someone like… George Zimmermann.

  29. Pinky says:

    @rodney dill: Hail to the Chief?

  30. OzarkHillbilly says:

    @Pinky: Heh.

  31. Tillman says:

    @Jenos Idanian #13:

    and mastered flying an airplane – a single-seat supersonic interceptor – well-known as a “widowmaker.”

    You keep bringing this up as proof of GWB’s intelligence, and I have to tell you, having spent some time around fighter pilots in the last week, I wouldn’t trust any of them to execute laws or do my taxes. You need something to fly an airplane, but the intelligence (I’d go with “cunning” actually) needed for it doesn’t transfer to other occupations.

    Also, “mastered” flying an airplane? In the National Guard? Do you know how insulting it’d be to say that to a pilot in the Air Force?

  32. Tillman says:

    @Pinky: Was thinking the exact same thing.

  33. grumpy realist says:

    @Jenos Idanian #13: I’ll back Bernie’s usefulness to Mankind as opposed to G.W. Bush. Bernie never invaded a country at a cost of $1 trillion dollars to the US. And his company, which did salvaging of materials from shipwrecks and other accidents, was extremely good at taking otherwise useless stuff and making it usable again. Exactly the opposite of Bush, who managed to take a decent economy and run it into the ground.

  34. john personna says:

    @Mikey:

    Something about Warren rubs me the wrong way. I find her intolerably patronizing. Every time she talks, it sounds like she’s talking down to people. Maybe she intends to sound pleasant and comforting, but it comes off to me as irredeemably creepy.

    That’s funny. I see the same thing but find it quaint and Midwestern. Maybe that’s because I myself am southern Californian.

    I think Warren is young enough to run later, and she’s probably cagey enough to see where the wind blows in future election cycles.

    It may be that she’s ahead of the curve on economic reform. If the curve bends her way, she might be in.

  35. Mikey says:

    @Tillman: I spent the first nine years of my USAF career working for fighter pilots. They were generally pretty bright guys, but you’re right, the particular combination of aptitudes necessary to fly a fighter jet doesn’t automatically translate to being good at anything else. A few of them were downright buffoons, most were decent if unremarkable bosses, and one I’d have followed straight into the mouth of Hell.

    In my experience, Guard pilots are pretty damn good, actually. And a lot more fun to work with.

  36. Mikey says:

    @john personna:

    That’s funny. I see the same thing but find it quaint and Midwestern. Maybe that’s because I myself am southern Californian.

    That’s kind of funny from my end too, because I am myself Midwestern (although transplanted to the East Coast), and it bugs the dickens out of me.

    Maybe it’s like how a lot of people outside the South think “bless your heart” as a preface to something is a statement of endearment, but those on the “inside” know what the real deal is?

  37. george says:

    @grumpy realist:

    (One of my friends, a brilliant chess player/businessman, told me that “George Bush was the stupidest person I had ever met.”)

    He lives a very insulated life. Bush is probably pretty much average intelligence for someone who went to college (and probably pretty much average for the intelligence of the 44 Presidents – few of which were geniuses by any measure).

    I think he was a very bad President, but not because of his intelligence (or lack of it) – I doubt intelligence plays much of a role in how good any national leader is. Some very intelligent ones have been tyrants of the worst kind.

    I’m trying to remember a President who I didn’t find smarmy or patronizing – they’re politicians, its their trade. Looking for one that doesn’t is like looking for a professional basketball player who isn’t in good shape. Probably happens, but is rare. I suspect Warren would make a considerably better President than Bush, but I don’t expect I’d enjoy listening to her any more than I enjoyed listening to Bush.

    Maybe I just dislike politicians as a trade …

  38. Latino_in_Boston says:

    She’s my senator, so I for one couldn’t be happier. I don’t think she really had a chance of winning the Presidency, so why waste all that time trying to get money and campaigning when she could instead do some good work right where she is.

  39. Rob in CT says:

    Incidently, I didn’t dislike Bill Clinton’s speaking b/c I thought he was talking down to me. He sounded smarmy to me. Also the “I feel your pain” thing made me roll my eyes, because I was young and well off so wtf was he talking about (clearly he had to be talking to ME, heh).

    Anyway, I really don’t have any idea of Warren’s political chops. I’ve actually never listened to her speak (read stuff yes, listened no. This is a habit of mine).

    Chair of the Banking Committee would be nifty…

  40. OzarkHillbilly says:

    @Rob in CT: Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

  41. Jenos Idanian #13 says:

    @al-Ameda: Maybe you and Dan Snyder can get together over drinks and discuss Native American jokes

    Is it really a “Native American” joke when the subject of the joke fraudulently claimed to be Native American?

  42. Jenos Idanian #13 says:

    @Tillman: How provincial of you. There are many forms of intelligence. What drives most people’s “Bush is stupid” is that he’s not overly articulate. He comes by it honestly, though — his father’s similarly fumble-mouthed, and most people say that he is very intelligent.

    However, if we’re simply going to equate “intelligence” with “speaking ability,” I’d put forth Joe Biden as the dumbest guy ever to be elected to national office.

    But back to Pinocchio-hontas… her history of lying and fraud would be career-ending, but she’s a good liberal, so she gets a pass. My hunch is that she knows that the media would cover for her from GOP attacks over her history, but the Clinton machine would chew her up and spit her out — like how Hillary was immune from attacks until Obama came on the scene.

  43. OzarkHillbilly says:

    @Jenos Idanian #13: And how do you know her claim was fraudulent? Because you don’t believe it?

  44. Jenos Idanian #13 says:

    @OzarkHillbilly: Because 1) she never offered any proof, and 2) she isn’t making it any more.

    She made the claim; the burden’s on her to prove it.

  45. Woody says:

    @Rafer Janders:

    Er, don’t think that was me, old boy.

  46. wr says:

    @Jenos Idanian #13: And the stupid-meter hits one hundred.

    Really, who do you think you’re impressing by simply vomiting up whatever right-wing slander you’ve read at the mention of certain names? Maybe you think you’re a bold truth-teller, bravely “poking the libs with a stick,” as dateless adolescents like to describe their actions. But that’s far too limp a stick to work — a problem I suspect you know all too well — because it’s so lazy no one can take you seriously enough to be annoyed.

    Is it really possible a human being doesn’t have anything better to do with his time?

  47. Jenos Idanian #13 says:

    @wr: There’s exactly one word of substance in all your blatherings there — “slander.” And even that’s wrong — “slander” refers to spoken words. What you wanted was “libel” — printed words.

    And this might come as news to you, buttercup, but truth is an absolute defense. Warren got by for years claiming Native American heritage and using it to her advantage. But once people started looking into that claim, she refused to talk about it any more and stopped boasting about it.

    Kind of like Obama’s publisher saying that he was born in Kenya when that made him hip and exotic and sellable as an author. And once that became a liability — when he started thinking about running for president — that went down the memory hole, too.

  48. Rob in CT says:

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    Agreed. Lots of folks really, really liked Clinton – specifically his speaking ability. People still rave about it.

    This is one reason why I don’t listen to pols speak. I read them instead. Better that way, really.

  49. wr says:

    @Jenos Idanian #13: Amazing. How empty must your life be to do nothing but catalog lies about people you will never meet and who will never hear of you?

    I understand it makes you feel better if you can tear down everyone who has accomplished things in their lives — that way you don’t have to feel so bad about your complete lack of positive impact on the world.

    But just for a couple of days, why don’t you take a little of the time spreading lies on the internet and volunteer for a good cause? Or, hell, go volunteer for the local Republican party, if you find their message so compelling. Just do something. You’ll be amazed how much better you feel.

  50. al-Ameda says:

    @Jenos Idanian #13:

    Is it really a “Native American” joke when the subject of the joke fraudulently claimed to be Native American?

    First, I believe that she claimed to be part Native American – is that untrue?
    Second, I was referring to this:

    Fauxcahontas is going to stay in her teepee

    when I mentioned that you and Dan should share drinks, tell bad “Native American” jokes, and discuss changing the name of the Washington Redskins (perhaps the Washington Zimmermans?)

  51. Jenos Idanian #13 says:

    @al-Ameda: I was mocking her bogus claims. Ever read Bloom County? Remember when Milo first met Oliver? Milo was so terrified, he called Oliver by a racial epithet — “Honkey!”

    Kind of like that.

  52. Jenos Idanian #13 says:

    @wr: Still all claptrap, no substance at all. Warren’s claiming Native American heritage is a matter of public record. And the investigations showed that not only was that totally unfounded, but a lot of her other claims about her family’s background were lies, too. And if you ever want to shut her up and get her to flee, just ask her about her “Native American” heritage — she’ll trample people to run away from the subject now.

  53. al-Ameda says:

    @Jenos Idanian #13:

    @al-Ameda: I was mocking her bogus claims. Ever read Bloom County? Remember when Milo first met Oliver? Milo was so terrified, he called Oliver by a racial epithet — “Honkey!”

    First, yes I read Bloom County, a very good comic strip.
    Second, so you do not know if Elizabeth Warren does not have some Native American ancestry?

  54. Jenos Idanian #13 says:

    @al-Ameda: I repeat: she claimed it for years, to her advantage. Once she declared for the Senate, people started actually checking up on her story and found there was nothing to support it. And she stopped claiming it right after, and refused to discuss it any more.

    Look up the legal term “mens rea.”

  55. Jenos Idanian #13 says:

    @al-Ameda: Let me make this even clearer: Obama is more Kenyan than the blue-eyed, blonde-haired Elizabeth Warren is Native American. Hell, I probably have more Native American blood than she does.

  56. al-Ameda says:

    @Jenos Idanian #13:

    @al-Ameda: Let me make this even clearer: Obama is more Kenyan than the blue-eyed, blonde-haired Elizabeth Warren is Native American. Hell, I probably have more Native American blood than she does.

    I suppose it’s possible that, although it was a family story that was told to her over the years, that ultimately it is about as true as Marco Rubio’s story that his family were Cuban exiles (even though his parents came to Florida over 2 years before the revolution.)

    It’s good to know that the truth police are on this.

  57. Jenos Idanian #13 says:

    @al-Ameda: Warren used her fake heritage for personal gain. She was counted as a “minority” for affirmative action, and was touted as Harvard’s first Native American faculty member. Like Obama’s book publisher touted his “Kenyan birth” to advance Obama’s career.

    Both bogus.

    But that’s right, liberals aren’t expected to tell the truth, are they? As long as what they say is in the service of The Greater Truth, they’re not only given a pass for lying, but expected to lie.

  58. al-Ameda says:

    @Jenos Idanian #13:

    @al-Ameda: Warren used her fake heritage for personal gain. She was counted as a “minority” for affirmative action, and was touted as Harvard’s first Native American faculty member. Like Obama’s book publisher touted his “Kenyan birth” to advance Obama’s career.
    Both bogus.
    But that’s right, liberals aren’t expected to tell the truth, are they? As long as what they say is in the service of The Greater Truth, they’re not only given a pass for lying, but expected to lie.

    So it was fine for Rubio to parlay his phantom “exile” background into political success, but not for Warren to do the same?

    By the way, what is it with you guys? You always invoke pathetic phony victimization claims whenever a liberal is found to be stretching the truth, you whine that conservatives are not held to the same standard.

  59. Tyrell says:

    @john personna: What we need is a tax payer’s “Bill of Rights”. The people who pay the taxes to keep this country going need representation. Senator Warren has some good ideas and seems to be free from lobbyism and other influencing, but I don’t have a clear view of where she stands on a lot of things. The middle class taxpayers need a break: working harder, losing ground, and too much month and not enough money. We need representation. I am glad that a native American is in Congress.
    ” They ran so fast that the hounds couldn’t catch ’em, right down the Mississippi to the Gulf of Mexico” (Horton, “Battle of New Orleans”)

  60. wr says:

    @Jenos Idanian #13: And if you had a chance to talkl to one of the most brilliant women in government, and this is what you chose to ask her about, you would be about as pathetic a human being as exists.

  61. wr says:

    @Tyrell: “What we need is a tax payer’s “Bill of Rights””

    We have one.

    It’s called the Bill of Rights.

  62. Jenos Idanian #13 says:

    @wr: And if you had a chance to talkl to one of the most brilliant women in government, and this is what you chose to ask her about, you would be about as pathetic a human being as exists.

    “Brilliant?” She conned you and Massachusetts voters, neither of which requires a great deal of brain power.

  63. Tyrell says:

    @wr: What has she done that has been brilliant? I know she is very intelligent. I have tried to find what she wants to do and have not been able to find much. I am in agreement on the big banks.

  64. Jenos Idanian #13 says:

    @al-Ameda: By the way, what is it with you guys? You always invoke pathetic phony victimization claims whenever a liberal is found to be stretching the truth

    “Stretching the truth.” What a charmingly innocent-sounding way of saying “just making up shit to con the rubes.” But then, since you’re one of the rubes, I see how you’d be touchy about admitting that.

    Just for giggles… did you ever believe that Obama opposed gay marriage? Even for all those years when he swore up and down that he did?

  65. al-Ameda says:

    @Jenos Idanian #13:

    Stretching the truth.” What a charmingly innocent-sounding way of saying “just making up shit to con the rubes.” But then, since you’re one of the rubes, I see how you’d be touchy about admitting that.

    Got it. I understand you completely. You’re down with Rubio “stretching the truth,” but not a Democrat.

  66. grumpy realist says:

    @Tyrell: she’s published a lot. Legal stuff, which is why you might have not run across it.

    I guess that Janos thinks that people become professors at Harvard “because they’re stupid.”

  67. grumpy realist says:

    P.S. and the American Indian background is quite plausible if she’s got a grandparent or great-grandparent or even further back. I forget the percentage that you have to have in order to be qualified as “having American Indian ancestry” for certain government programs, but it’s something like 1/16 or 1/32.

    So Jenos is accusing someone of being “fake” without any proof that she is, indeed, fake.

  68. Rafer Janders says:

    @Tyrell:

    I have tried to find what she wants to do and have not been able to find much.

    To be fair, though, you have extremely poor research skills.

  69. Rafer Janders says:

    @grumpy realist:

    Legal stuff, which is why you might have not run across it.

    Yes, it’s not like any of that is referenced on Google or anything, or available for sale on Amazon. I mean, an active search for this stuff takes about five seconds online! No wonder he couldn’t find any mention of it! Researchin’ is hard, and he’s jes’ a poor country bumpkin’…..

  70. David M says:

    @grumpy realist:

    …the American Indian background is quite plausible…

    I’m fairly sure Warren isn’t Native American, but it’s not remotely a big deal. It is worth noting that it’s one of the least honest commenters on here that’s all worked up about this. (The standard RWNJ may not know he’s spouting nonsense, but this one no longer gets the benefit of the doubt after so many blatant lies.)

  71. Jenos Idanian #13 says:

    @David M: I’m fairly sure Warren isn’t Native American, but it’s not remotely a big deal.

    It was more than remotely a big deal (as Joe Biden might say, it was a “big effing deal”) when it was a career-booster… as long as no one looked too carefully at it. Then it became a liability, and needed to be tossed down the memory hole — and only racists, sexists, and other bad people would bring it up then.

  72. David M says:

    @Jenos Idanian #13:

    I won’t argue with your description of the people who still care about this issue, you should know them well.

  73. OzarkHillbilly says:

    @Jenos Idanian #13:

    Because 1) she never offered any proof, and 2) she isn’t making it any more.

    She made the claim; the burden’s on her to prove it.

    Shorter Jenos: I don’t have any proof.

    In all honesty I thought maybe something had come about long after I had stopped paying attention, that you could stand on. Sad to see, but not unexpected, that is not so. Oh, one more thing, the burden is not on her to prove it as she no longer is making anything of it one way or the other, You however are, therefor the burden is now on you. You are calling her a liar, now you have to prove it. Or are you willing to allow the same standards of evidence for Harry Ried’s claim that Mitt Romney does not pay any taxes?

    Put up or… Oh, I give up.

  74. rudderpedals says:

    @Tyrell: For examples, let the google scholar be your guide, grasshopper. http://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=elizabeth+warren+&btnG=&hl=en&as_sdt=1%2C10

  75. OzarkHillbilly says:

    @Jenos Idanian #13:

    Obama is more Kenyan than the blue-eyed, blonde-haired Elizabeth Warren is Native American.

    Haysoos christos, are you really that stupid? One of my best friends growing up was as blond as any Aryan and his sis was blond and blue eyed to boot. But if you looked at their “half blood” mother you would have sworn she just walked off the rez. Blond hair and blue eyes are recessive genes,,, oh forget it, I am not going to try and educate you in genetics when you can’t even understand the basics in logic.

  76. Jenos Idanian #13 says:

    @OzarkHillbilly: Oh, one more thing, the burden is not on her to prove it as she no longer is making anything of it one way or the other, You however are, therefor the burden is now on you. You are calling her a liar, now you have to prove it.

    So, when she stops lying, she retroactively never lied? Interesting theory there. And, for your side, remarkably convenient.

  77. wr says:

    @Tyrell: “I have tried to find what she wants to do and have not been able to find much.”

    Well, I just googled “what Elizabeth Warren wants to do” and got a whole lot of solid answers. Why don’t you give that a shot?

  78. wr says:

    @Jenos Idanian #13: “: Obama is more Kenyan than the blue-eyed, blonde-haired Elizabeth Warren is Native America”

    Perhaps you missed the recent story — it was just posted on every corner of the internet — of the white supremacist leader who agreed to have a DNA test and discovered that despite his lily-white skin he is 14% African.

    I realize that to you, a Native American has to live in a teepee and say “wampum” a lot to qualify… but that’s just because you’re ignorant.

  79. Jenos Idanian #13 says:

    @wr: Perhaps you missed the recent story — it was just posted on every corner of the internet — of the white supremacist leader who agreed to have a DNA test and discovered that despite his lily-white skin he is 14% African.

    I ignore the white supremacists. They annoy me, and their pathetic attempts for attention are an admission of their utter irrelevance.

    Kind of like you, come to think of it.

  80. Just 'nutha' ig'rant cracker says:

    @al-Ameda: Just to be fair, is it not possible for someone to have been a exile from Cuba leaving Bautista’s regime for political reasons? I know that it is not the same and someone should not claim to be such without clarifying because of the contemporary understanding of Cuban exile. but just the same…

  81. al-Ameda says:

    @Jenos Idanian #13:

    So, when she stops lying, she retroactively never lied? Interesting theory there. And, for your side, remarkably convenient.

    So, I see that you’re still clinging to the notion that Rubio’s “stretching of the truth” is more acceptable than Warren’s? Is Rubio currently lying, retroactively lying, or has he discontinued the lying about that “exile” story he was selling for years?

  82. An Interested Party says:

    You always invoke pathetic phony victimization claims…

    Today’s “conservatives” play the Victimhood Tour to packed houses on a daily basis…they are martyrs par excellence…

  83. Jenos Idanian #13 says:

    @al-Ameda: I haven’t said word one about Rubio so far. You’ve been playing “SQUIRREL!” all by your lonesome.

    Get back to me when you wanna talk about Warren. You remember her — the actual subject of this thread.

  84. David M says:

    @Jenos Idanian #13:

    I haven’t said word one about Rubio so far.

    That’s the point. You’re very big on selective honesty.

  85. matt bernius says:

    @Jenos Idanian #13:

    Obama is more Kenyan than the blue-eyed, blonde-haired Elizabeth Warren is Native American. Hell, I probably have more Native American blood than she does.

    Wow… what an incredibly (but not particularly surprising) racist view of the world you have…

    This reminds me of a cringe-worthy line from an X-Files episode I recently watched. Scully was presented with the picture of the corpse of a Albino African America and said (I kid you not) “I thought you said the victim was black!”

    For the record, I’ve known a number of blue-eyed, blonde haired Native Americans and First Nation Peoples (with very probable bloodlines) – especially folks in the North East. And these were not “Generokees…”

  86. matt bernius says:

    @Jenos Idanian #13:

    Get back to me when you wanna talk about Warren. You remember her — the actual subject of this thread.

    Man, considering the amount of thread hijacking you attempt on a pretty regular basis here, it takes a particular big set of internet nuts to write something like this.

  87. wr says:

    @Jenos Idanian #13: “I ignore the white supremacists. They annoy me, and their pathetic attempts for attention are an admission of their utter irrelevance.”

    Hey stupid: The point is this, although it’s astonishing that you need it explained: A man who prided himself on his all-white heritage turned out to be one-sixth African. Which means it’s quite possible for the “blond, blue-eyes” Warren to be part Native American.

    Do you have to study to be so dense?

  88. anjin-san says:

    @ Jenos

    She made the claim; the burden’s on her to prove it.

    My God, you are pathetic.

    I’m of French extraction. I just am. And I certainly don’t have to prove it to a pissant like you. If you don’t believe me, you can alway GFYS.

    You are calling Warren a liar. That’s a pretty serious charge. According to your own “logic” there is not a burden on you to prove it.

    You may not believe what Warren says, and you are entitled to your opinion. But your lack of belief does not make Warren a liar. Kind of ironic anyway, that a proven liar such as yourself has the nerve to call anyone else a liar. Well, it’s not really nerve. It’s just unawareness of staggering proportions.

  89. superdestroyer says:

    @wr:

    Considering that Warren is not a graduate of an Ivy League Law school, there is zero chance of her being appointed to the Supreme Court. Those seats seem to be reserved only for the graduates of Yale and Harvard.

  90. Gromitt Gunn says:

    @anjin-san: Yep yep.

    On my mother’s side, we’ve always just “known” that our family first sailed over to the Boston area in the 1640s. One of my uncles was working on the geneology, but there’s quite a few gaps in the recordkeeping, as one might imagine. Oddly enough, we’ve got good documentation for the 17th and 18th centuries, but a lot of property and birth and death records from19th century Boston are a mess.

    It doesn’t seem weird to me at all that she would have grown up just knowing that they were part Native American, and assumed it was true. Especially living in the Oklahoma Territory, which has one of the largest Native populations.

    Families tell stories, and those get passed down. There’s plenty of fault to find with Rubio, but I’ve no doubt he was also sharing the stories he was told. Its very human to want to know where we came from, and we tend to internalize the stories we’re told as kids. It takes a particular brand of d-bag to take a very common human experience like sharing stories and turn it into something negative.

  91. SC_Birdflyte says:

    @Mikey: Actually, the reserve forces pilots I’ve known were generally pretty sharp guys. However, most of them had already done a stint in the AF, Navy, or Marine aviation. GWB did not, except for a year in training. On a more personal note, I’d never consider my father an intellectual, but in 1942, he went from driving a ’36 Ford to flying a B-17. In his case, excellent vision, coorination, and reflexes mattered the most.

  92. OzarkHillbilly says:

    @Jenos Idanian #13:

    So, when she stops lying, she retroactively never lied? Interesting theory there. And, for your side, remarkably convenient.

    Remarkably convenient that you apply a standard of evidence to allegations you make about other people that you refuse to accept for Harry Reid when he said something about Mitt Romney.

  93. george says:

    @anjin-san:

    Actually the burden of proof is always on the person making a positive claim. In this case I don’t see it as a big deal (and I suspect like Grommit says its just a family story being passed down, same with Rubio) – but if it were an important matter it would be up to her to prove it.

    If I claim that I’ve invented a warp drive, the onus isn’t on anyone listening to prove that I haven’t, but for me to prove that I have – proving negatives is generally impossible (except for some binary situations), which is why the onus is always on the person making the claim.

    Whether its a big deal is a different matter – I don’t see either hers or Rubio’s claim as being a big enough deal that either should have to go out of their way to substantiate it. Believe it or don’t, but move on.

  94. Jenos Idanian #13 says:

    @OzarkHillbilly: Reid said that Romney hadn’t paid any taxes, and challenged Romney to disprove it. (It should be noted that Reid had no legal way to access that information, but we’re dealing with Obama’s IRS, who have already been proven to abuse their power to advance his agenda.) Warren spent years benefiting from her claims of Native American heritage, then dropped it when someone actually asked her for proof. And now she refuses to even acknowledge that she ever said anything about it at all. I’m not seeing the parallel.

    Oh, that’s right. Reid and Warren are good liberal Democrats, so they are to be presumed to be telling the truth at all times, and it’s wrong (and probably racist) to question them.

  95. Jenos Idanian #13 says:

    @SC_Birdflyte: On a more personal note, I’d never consider my father an intellectual, but in 1942, he went from driving a ’36 Ford to flying a B-17. In his case, excellent vision, coorination, and reflexes mattered the most.

    Not to denigrate your father, but flying a bomber in the 1940’s was vastly different than flying a single-seat jet fighter in the 1970’s. Your father had a co-pilot, a navigator, and a radio operator — the fighter pilot had to do all those jobs himself, in a plane traveling about three times as fast.

  96. OzarkHillbilly says:

    @Jenos Idanian #13:

    Reid said that Romney hadn’t paid any taxes, and challenged Romney to disprove it.

    Here’s the pitch, a swing… AND A BIG MISS!!! That is not what Reid said. What he said was that someone who knew Romney told him that Romney bragged about not paying taxes.

    If the first sentence you write is categorically wrong, maybe you should stop writing. Somehow or other I doubt that will happen, so I just stopped reading.

  97. Jenos Idanian #13 says:

    @OzarkHillbilly: What he said was that someone who knew Romney told him that Romney bragged about not paying taxes.

    You’re right, and I apologize. Reid did actually use that weasel tactic to get his smear out there. I gave him credit for courage and integrity that he so clearly lacks.

    Thanks for that correction.

  98. grumpy realist says:

    Heck, I thought the whole “Amerindian” thing came up because she checked off some box on some form at Harvard.

    That’s a pretty big difference from claiming to have invented a warp drive.

    Considering what trivial things get blown up into “scandals!”, I’m surprised anyone EVER runs for POTUS.

    Maybe another reason why Elizabeth Warren has turned thumbs down on 2016. She’s already seen in a miniature way the spittle and feces that would be thrown at her, and has decided she wants none of it.

  99. Rafer Janders says:

    @Jenos Idanian #13:

    Not to denigrate your father, but flying a bomber in the 1940′s was vastly different than flying a single-seat jet fighter in the 1970′s. Your father had a co-pilot, a navigator, and a radio operator — the fighter pilot had to do all those jobs himself, in a plane traveling about three times as fast.

    Though, unlike George W. Bush, SC_Birdlyte’s father also had evade German fighter planes and anti-aircraft fire in combat missions lasting for hours over enemy territory. Bush had to evade some fluffy white clouds over the wide-open Texas skies.

    Not that there weren’t American fighter pilots evading enemy fire in the 1960’s and 1970’s. But they were doing so over the skies of North Vietnam, a place Bush said he definitely, definitely did not want to go. Alabama or bust!

  100. al-Ameda says:

    @Jenos Idanian #13:

    @al-Ameda: I haven’t said word one about Rubio so far. You’ve been playing “SQUIRREL!” all by your lonesome.

    Yes, you certainly have avoided Rubio’s “stretching of the truth” haven’t you? From that, for now, I have to infer that you have no problem with Rubio’s story, while you (very selectively) have a problem with Warren’s story.

    For the record, I have no problem with Warren’s or Rubio’s stories – they were probably part of the family and passed on down with not much research. I really do not care.

  101. al-Ameda says:

    @Just ‘nutha’ ig’rant cracker:

    @al-Ameda: Just to be fair, is it not possible for someone to have been a exile from Cuba leaving Bautista’s regime for political reasons? I know that it is not the same and someone should not claim to be such without clarifying because of the contemporary understanding of Cuban exile. but just the same…

    Fair enough. I was using the contemporary definition of the “exile community” in South Florida, however your point is well taken.

  102. george says:

    @grumpy realist:

    Yes, it is a big difference, which is why I said it doesn’t matter if she (or Rubio) back up their claims. If I claim I ate pizza for lunch yesterday, do I have to bother proving it? On the other hand, if it becomes an issue (Warren’s story, Rubio’s story, my pizza lunch), the onus is always going to be on the one making a positive claim.

    I’m not arguing that Jenos is right in saying Warren or Rubio should (as in its important enough for them to take the time and effort) back their claims (its in the pizza for lunch category), I’m arguing that he’s right in saying there’s nothing wrong with people not believing them until they do.

    Its a general principle – if you make a positive claim, there’s no reason to expect anyone to believe it without proof. They don’t have to prove you wrong, you have to prove yourself right. That 99.999% of claims (like Warren’s) are too trivial to be worth the effort of proof doesn’t change the principle.

  103. Rafer Janders says:

    @al-Ameda:

    It is possible, just not in this case. Rubio’s family claimed they were fleeing Castro, even though they left before he took power. So yes, one could have fled Batista — but they did not.

  104. rudderpedals says:

    Rubio’s little lie didn’t come out until after his win in the 3 way, so it was never really litigated. Brown’s campaign OTOH discussed and contested how many drops of Native Am blood were coursing through her veins.

  105. SC_Birdflyte says:

    @Jenos Idanian #13: Your denigration of my father is duly noted.

  106. grumpy realist says:

    @george: That’s why I wonder how many of us could actually, at this moment, be able to “prove” things like
    1) I was born in the USA
    2) That I am an American citizen
    3) That I actually am who I claim to be.

    There are probably many Americans who would be unable to provide an original birth certificate, for instance. I’m running around with all sorts of things like a driver’s license and a U.S. passport, but doesn’t that validity only depend on the fact that I was able to convince officials (state or federal) that the original paper waved in their face was, in fact, legit? So from a Platonic viewpoint, my present ID proves nothing and should not be relied upon, right?

    It seems to me that it would be very easy to challenge the U.S. citizenship claims of quite a few people…especially those who were born near the Mexican border and not in a hospital that’s still in existence.

  107. john personna says:

    The “racial” checkbox thing comes at an interesting time. The whole idea will be shortly dead, and anyone who cares can get a genetic test of deep ancestral history.

    (You may have heard that some US “tribes” oppose the National Geographic’s Genographic project, because of what it might tell them.)

  108. Dave says:

    @Jenos Idanian #13: You really might like to look at this article before you start calling Warren a liar. The worst that can be said of her is that she apparently relied on and related some family history without checking it out fully first. You might also note that there is very little evidence she benefited from it much. On the contrary, most of her accomplishments seem to have been well earned. Note, I do have some sympathy for Warren in this matter because my ex-wife was just “absolutely sure” she was part Native American since her mother had told her so as a young girl. Needless to say my ex actually looked Swedish.

  109. Mikey says:

    @Dave: That article doesn’t make Warren look too positive in that mini-scandal. I mean, I have Native American heritage–provable through birth records–a full generation closer than she does, but it’s still so far out that it’s pretty much irrelevant. I certainly never thought of checking “Native American” on anything.

  110. marginoerra says:

    @Jenos Idanian #13: Wrong again about Obama promoting his “birthplace” as Kenya because it was more exotic:

    According to a promotional booklet produced by the agency, Acton & Dystel, to showcase its roster of writers, Obama was “born in Kenya and raised in Indonesia and Hawaii.”

    Miriam Goderich edited the text of the bio; she is now a partner at the Dystel & Goderich agency, which lists Obama as one of its current clients.

    “This was nothing more than a fact checking error by me–an agency assistant at the time,” Goderich wrote in an emailed statement to Yahoo News. “There was never any information given to us by Obama in any of his correspondence or other communications suggesting in any way that he was born in Kenya and not Hawaii. I hope you can communicate to your readers that this was a simple mistake and nothing more.”
    http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/OTUS/born-kenya-obamas-literary-agent-misidentified-birthplace-1991/story?id=16372566

  111. Dave says:

    @Mikey: And the worst Warren apparently did was list herself as Native American in a directory. Harvard cited her background but that’s irrelevant in terms of career advancement since they recruited her and she refused a tenured position and the Dean at the time has said ethnicity didn’t come into the picture for her hiring. In applications she listed herself as white or non-minority. Race didn’t play a role in her substantive accomplishments. It really looks like she she was in love with the idea of herself as a Native American, didn’t get much benefit from it and didn’t think through the implications of listing herself as such in the directory. As I mentioned, reminds me of my ex.

  112. Mikey says:

    @Dave: Yeah, I don’t think she was seeking any kind of real benefit from it. It doesn’t seem she received any actual minority preference in any of her jobs. Just kind of odd behavior though.

  113. george says:

    @grumpy realist:

    You’re probably right (I think its much less of a problem in some other countries such as Canada, where the gov’t gives out citizen ship cards and papers for free – hence why needing to show ID to vote in Canada and Europe is a complete non-issue, everyone needs to show ID and no one has a problem with it).

    Though the lack of ability to prove identity makes any claim of heritage more rather than less iffy. It doesn’t matter in Warren’s case, as she wasn’t seeking any gain from it, but it could be an issue for some programs where people might have an incentitive to lie to gain admitance. The easy solution going forward (wouldn’t help older people) is to issue gov’t citizenship cards with the data on it – citizenship cards are actually pretty handy, and in Canada there’s no part of the political spectrum which is against them.

  114. rudderpedals says:

    @george: The states will probably have gathered all they need to do this in a few years if Florida is like elsewhere. I had to supply proof of citizenship when I renewed my drivers license in the form of a certified copy of my birth certificate, and Mrs RP had to do that along with the certified copy of licensed marital bliss to prove up her name.

  115. mattbernius says:

    @Mikey:

    Just kind of odd behavior though.

    Not really. I tend to think @al-Ameda right in comparing it to Rubio. Both cases seem to me to primarily be about people taking family stories at face value and then running with them out of a sense of pride (and potentially politics).

    One of the things my Native American friends bitch about is how everyone proudly claims to belong to the Cherokee Tribe (hence the term “Generokee” that gets kicked around in native circles) based on family claims.

    BTW, the fact that she contributed recipes to that “tribal” cookbook actually serves as a point in the “innocent, but really dumb” category as far as I’m concerned.

    For another example of this see all of the crazy crap that Johnny Depp spewed about his American Indian ancestry during the lead up to “The Lone Ranger.” The best I can say about Warren is, unlike Depp, at least she grew out of the “it’s cool to be Indian” phase.

  116. bill says:

    @Rob in CT: i got that same feeling too, i get it now when obama spews, there’s just something so fake and pandering about him.
    but on to our semi-kinda indian savior…..i think she should run just for the zany shenanigans that may ensue.

  117. JohnMcC says:

    Just for what it’s worth, which can’t be much, the President of the Cherokee Nation (the OK band) is 1/32d Cherokee and would pass for caucasian at a Klan rally. One could also look up the pictures of fairly well known Cherokee people like Brad Carson (former OK Congressman and Ass’t Sec’ty of the Army) or — surprisingly unmentioned up til now — Will Rogers.

    The ‘blue eyes/blonde hair’ business shows how small some minds can be.

  118. anjin-san says:

    @ George

    Well, my wife tells me she has indian ancestry, and I never felt any need to ask her to prove it. I don’t think Warren has any obligation to prove anything about her family background, especially to people who could really care less and simply wish to damage her any way they can. It’s just another flavor of birtherism.

    Jenos is free to believe that Warren is telling an untruth. But the fact that he thinks that does not make her a liar, and he is over the line calling her one. Sadly, these little games of his seem to be all he has.

  119. george says:

    @anjin-san:

    Well, my wife tells me she has indian ancestry, and I never felt any need to ask her to prove it. I don’t think Warren has any obligation to prove anything about her family background, especially to people who could really care less and simply wish to damage her any way they can. It’s just another flavor of birtherism.

    Jenos is free to believe that Warren is telling an untruth. But the fact that he thinks that does not make her a liar, and he is over the line calling her one. Sadly, these little games of his seem to be all he has.

    As I said, I don’t think Warren has any obligation to prove anything either – it simply doesn’t matter whether she has Indian ancestry or not. And certainly Jenos (or anyone) believing she is a liar doesn’t make her one. The status of her claim is simply “unproven” and “irrelevant”.

    Its just a basic principle though, that if it were an important issue that the onus would be on her to prove her statement. This is quite different than birtherism. Birtherism was such a joke because Obama was proven to be born in Hawaii, and the birthers refused to believe the truth, though it was as much or more as was released by most of the 43 Presidents before him. The onus was on Obama to prove his citizenship to the election authorities, and he rightly did so.

    For my part, I always thought Birtherism was a kind of tit-for-tat for the Truthers. There’s always a segment of the population who will respond to silly accusations against one of their team with some sort of silly accusation against the other team.

  120. bill says:

    @anjin-san: i could care less either, unless she tries to “benefit” from it. (there should be no “benefit” for being any ethnicity though).

  121. Rafer Janders says:

    @bill:

    (there should be no “benefit” for being any ethnicity though).

    Certainly, as a white man I’ve never benefited from my ethnicity in the US….

  122. grumpy realist says:

    @george: God forbid we insisted that everyone be able to prove sufficient for people like Janos any of the stories we hear about our families otherwise be accused of being liars….

    Heck, Janos is asking for a higher level of proof than is necessary in court.

    (Take a look at the hoops that Jews in Israel have to go through in order to prove they’re Jewish enough to a) immigrate, or b) get married in a Jewish ceremony.)