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Conservative schadenfreude
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Schadenfreude (taking pleasure from the misfortune of others) is a sinful pleasure, which all but the saints among us indulge in from time to time. These days conservatives have ample reasons for indulgence.
Let's begin with Fauxcohantas, Elizabeth Warren, appointed to the faculty of Harvard Law School despite less than sterling academic credentials because she claimed Cherokee blood flows through her veins.
Harvard took Ms. Warren's word she is part Native American. She listed herself that way in the annual directory of minority law professors published by the Association of American Law Schools.
When Ms. Warren became a candidate for the U.S. Senate, she was asked to substantiate her claim. She's had difficulty doing so. Ms. Warren produced a birth certificate for her great-great-great-grandmother -- which doesn't, alas, mention great-great-great-grandma's ancestry. So Ms. Warren relies upon "family lore." A female relative told her that her grandfather had "high cheek bones like all the Indians do," she said.
If Ms. Warren is 1/32nd Cherokee, she still would qualify as "Aryan" under Hitler's Nuremberg laws, noted Mark Steyn.
But George Zimmerman, accused of killing Florida teen Trayvon Martin, would not. Mr. Zimmerman's mother is Peruvian, which makes him as much Hispanic as Barack Obama is black. A great grandfather was black, which makes Mr. Zimmerman four times as black as Ms. Warren is Native American. But in the bizarro world of the Politically Correct, Fauxcahontas is a minority entitled to affirmative action; Mr. Zimmerman, a cracker.
The absurdity isn't lost on the voters of Massachusetts. Ms. Warren's campaign is tanking.
Let's stay in Massachusetts. Democrats attack Mr. Romney because he is rich. Sen. John Kerry is nearly as rich. But since he got his money by marrying it rather than by earning it, as Gov. Romney did, liberals give him a pass. They shouldn't.
"The five-term senator has a well-documented history of investing in companies that would benefit from policies he supports, as well as making conveniently timed and highly profitable trades coinciding with the passage of major legislation and, in some cases, the dissemination of privileged information," wrote Andrew Stiles in the Washington Free Beacon.
Sen. Kerry invested heavily in the "green" energy companies that received federal subsidies, Mr. Stiles said. He profited from inside information on which banks would receive federal bailouts, and which drug companies stood to benefit from Obamacare.
Finally, there is President Obama, who wanted to appoint the ethically challenged Ms. Warren to head the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and who made the ethically challenged Sen. Kerry his chief foreign policy surrogate. (Will Democrats designate the "ethically challenged" a disadvantaged minority entitled to affirmative action?)
The president extended all the way to Afghanistan the victory lap he's taking for giving the green light a year ago to Navy SEALs to "get" Osama bin Laden. He should have paid more attention to what happened to Sen. Kerry after he made his alleged heroism in Vietnam the centerpiece of his presidential campaign in 2004.
At the time of the Democratic convention, Sen. Kerry led in the polls. His lead vanished after many who served with him -- the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth -- challenged his inflated claims.
SEALs think the president's politicization of their mission destroyed the intelligence value of documents they risked their lives to obtain, and endangered their safety, wrote Michael Hastings in Buzzfeed.
Many resent Mr. Obama for inflating his role. "In years to come there is going to be information that will come out that Obama was not the man who made the call," former SEAL sniper Chris Kyle told Toby Harnden of the London Daily Mail.
Blowback's already begun. A Web ad produced by Veterans for a Strong America that chides Mr. Obama for claiming credit for the heroism of others "went viral," with more than 250,000 views on YouTube, Mr. Hastings said. The president dawdled for nearly a year before making his "gutsy call," said retired Gen. Jack Keane. Mr. Obama planned to blame the military if anything went wrong, said former Attorney General Michael Mukasey.
Fauxcahontas, Sen. Kerry, and Barack Obama regard themselves as worthy subjects of veneration. They're becoming objects of ridicule. There is some justice in this world.
First Published May 8, 2012 3:49 pm
