Allahpundit is incredulous. I mean, what else can you be at this point? Quick recap: Massachusetts Senate candidate Elizabeth Warren (D) listed herself as a Native American in a professional law directory for at least nine years, and still maintains that she is being truthful about her "identity." Documents show that two of the Ivy League law schools that hired her excitedly touted her as a minority or faculty member -- though she now insists that her "ethnicity" played no role whatsoever in her hiring process. Sure. Much searing scrutiny, and several hilarious explanations later, we now know that there is zero evidence that Warren has any Native American lineage. The only proof she's been able to offer is an anecdote about her grandfather having high cheekbones -- "like all the Indians do"(!) -- and the fact that she once contributed five recipes to a cookbook entitled, "Pow Wow Chow," in which she's listed as Cherokee. I'm not kidding. But here's the unreal shark jump...
Two of the possibly plagiarized recipes, said in the Pow Wow Chow cookbook to have been passed down through generations of Oklahoma Native American members of the Cherokee tribe, are described in a New York Times News Service story as originating at Le Pavilion, a fabulously expensive French restaurant in Manhattan. The dishes were said to be particular favorites of the Duke and Duchess of Windsor and Cole Porter.
The two recipes, “Cold Omelets with Crab Meat” and “Crab with Tomato Mayonnaise Dressing,” appear in an article titled “Cold Omelets with Crab Meat,” written by Pierre Franey of the New York Times News Service that was published in the August 22, 1979 edition of the Virgin Islands Daily News, a copy of which can be seen here. Ms. Warren’s 1984 recipe for Crab with Tomato Mayonnaise Dressing is a word-for-word copy of Mr. Franey’s 1979 recipe.
Mrs. Warren’s 1984 recipe for Cold Omelets with Crab Meat contains all four of the ingredients listed in Mr. Franey’s 1979 recipe in the exact same portion but lists five additional ingredients. More significantly, her instructions are virtually a word for word copy of Mr. Franey’s instructions from this 1979 article.
So this 0/32 "Native American" is even cribbing "family" recipes from the New York Times (!) news service and trying to pass them off as passed-down-through-the-years, authentic Cherokee fare? The word 'pathetic' doesn't even begin to cover this material. Questions: (1) What isn't she ripping off or lying about? (2) At what point do we discover that her real name is Nicole or something? AP adds to the fun:
Recommended
Among the ingredients for Crab with Tomato Mayonnaise Dressing: “Imported mustard,” Worcestershire sauce, cognac, and of course crab, all presumably readily available to a, er, 19th-century agrarian Cherokee settlement in Oklahoma.
Remember, she pointed the media to 'Pow Wow Chow' to, um, "substantiate" her heritage. For the second time during this saga, I'm rendered speechless. This is a full-fledged trainwreck, and Scotty Brown's camp is starting to solicit donations over it. Go for it, man. Two parting items, via our bud Mary Katharine Ham. First, an inquiry for our legal beagle readers: If proven, is plagiarizing anything -- even recipes -- considered a serious academic violation? Second, just enjoy this masterful piece of satire:
Care to guess how many bits edgy, brave, truth-to-power comedian Jon Stewart has done on this circus? None. I guess this whole thing just isn't funny.
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