Inside the Bubble -- The WaPo on Elizabeth Warren

In the Washington Post yesterday, Karen Tumulty wrote a lengthy article investigating whether "liberal star" Elizabeth Warren could win in Massachusetts. It was an amazing piece of delusional writing. Warren is the Democrat pol who claimed Native American status in connection with being hired at three different universities on the basis of a supposed one-thirty second background as a Cherokee. The firestorm that has resulted has led to everything from Warren being renamed "Feauxcohontas" by Mark Steyn to all sorts of other ridicule of the candidate. Indeed, Warren claims she only listed herself as Cherokee to meet people at parties. No, really, that is what she said. As a result, one would expect the WaPo and Tumulty to seriously consider the effect that this brouhaha is having on Warren's standing in the Bay State. Of course, that did not happen. The Cherokee issue is mentioned three quarters of the way through the piece, and then it is only to say that voters may well forget all about it by election day. The merits are not discussed, but Warren's pathetic response to it is mentioned in passing.

It never fails to amaze me just how unfamiliar many of the liberal press are with the real world. Warren is an extremely wealthy and successful professor at Harvard. She has advantages that few others in Massachusetts can claim. She is not struggling to make the next mortgage payment or worrying about whether or not her job will disappear. In the eyes of most folks in the state, Warren has it made. So it is not a minor issue if facts are uncovered that indicate that Warren may have gotten here wealth and employment through the use of minority "credentials". As a candidate, Warren has to be able to say to the public, "Look at my past success which I will repeat in Washington." That certainly plays better than a claim like "I cheated in the past and will do it again!"

For the WaPo, however, the idea that Warren is a phony or a cheat has no importance. After all, she is a liberal star. She talks the talk. That is all that matters. Tumulty probably does not know anyone in DC who cares about whether or not Warren "created" her minority status or whether or not that "status" is responsible for her getting jobs in the past. After all, that is just how the system works: if a senator like Scott Brown follows the law and keeps his daughter on his health insurance, that is a scandal in Tumulty's world. After all, Brown is a Republican. It matters not that Brown has consistently said that he wants to keep the part of Obamacare that allows children to stay on parents' policies until 26; he is a Republican. It matters not that under Massachusetts law, wholly aside from Obamacare, children can stay on their parents policies until 26; Brown has the letter "R" after his name. He is just not a "liberal star".

In 1972, Pauline Kael wrote about how amazed she was when Nixon beat McGovern (in the second biggest landslide ever.) After all, Kael mused that she did not know anyone who was voting for Nixon. That seems to be the way that Tumulty investigated events in Massachusetts. Maybe her columns should be retitled: "News from inside the Bubble".