Warren didn’t help herself with ‘proof ’ of her heritage

FOLLOWING U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s big reveal this week, CNN’s editor at large for political coverage, Chris Cillizza, wrote that Warren’s DNA test shows she is “probably-almost-definitelyI-mean-nothing-is-100-percent partially Native American.”

That pretty well sums it up. What Warren, D-Mass., released Monday as proof that she indeed has American Indian ancestry did little if anything to quiet critics who have accused her of overplaying that hand during her career.

Warren, who grew up in Norman, has been fighting this fight since her successful 2012 Senate campaign when the Boston Herald noted that Harvard Law School listed her as a minority professor. Warren acknowledged that she had listed herself as such in a roster of law professors; when the newspaper asked for documentation, her campaign wasn’t able to produce any.

Warren also initially said she had no idea how Harvard or the University of Pennsylvania had received that information, only to admit later that she had told the schools sometime after her hiring.

All of this has been grist for Warren’s foremost critic, Donald Trump, first on the campaign trail and then as president. The senator’s news Monday did nothing to curb that criticism from Trump or others.

Locally, the Cherokee Nation said the DNA tests were useless for determining tribal citizenship. The tribe’s secretary of state, Chuck Hoskin Jr., said using a DNA test to suggest ties to the Cherokees or any tribal nation, “even vaguely, is inappropriate and wrong.”

Hoskin said doing so “makes a mockery out of DNA tests” while dishonoring tribal governments and their citizens, “whose ancestors are well documented and whose heritage is proven.”

The Washington Post quoted Kim TallBear, a researcher at the University of Alberta, who said Warren’s claims were “yet another strike” against tribal sovereignty. “Non-Indigenous Americans will never stop making claims to all things indigenous …” she said.

The DNA test Warren touted estimated that she had a Native ancestor “dating back six to 10 generations.” That translates to between one-64th and one-1,024th American Indian.

According to an analysis from the University of Georgia, a potential 0.09 percent Native American Heritage would make Warren less Indian than the average white American (0.18).

In a tweet, Warren acknowledged tribal affiliation and citizenship are determined not by DNA tests but “only — only — by Tribal Nations.”

“I respect the distinction, & don’t list myself as Native in the Senate.” How considerate of her.

Numerous political pundits read Warren’s news as a clear sign she plans to run for president in 2020. But CNN’s Cillizza said this chapter could hurt Warren because when voting for president, the public “tends to buy into the person as opposed to the specific policy.”

Warren’s policy ideas — few in the party will outflank her to the left — would likely turn off many Oklahomans. But she certainly has done herself no favors with this ham-handed effort to justify what’s been a dubious ancestral claim from the start.