Thread by @tommyxtopher

@fawfulfan @leahmcelrath @emilycrockett @Mediaite There are a few reasons why this bothers me, but I'd first like us all to agree on the facts. What she said in 2007 is definitely in conflict with what she says now, and what she said in 2007 was factual. She lacked the credentials to keep the job.

@fawfulfan @leahmcelrath @emilycrockett @Mediaite From a purely political perspective, Warren has considerable strengths, but also vulnerabilities that need to be addressed and aren't. They need to be addressed before she's the nominee, not exploited after. So I'll stipulate to her strengths.

@fawfulfan @leahmcelrath @emilycrockett @Mediaite Medicare for All is a significant vulnerability for reasons I've written extensively about, but Warren has wisely begun positioning for a pivot. mediaite.com/opinion/elizab… Unfortunately that pivot could be a liability as well.

@fawfulfan @leahmcelrath @emilycrockett @Mediaite Her opponent will attack her no matter what, but pivoting from Berniecare could cost her among Sanders diehards. Or she could not pivot enough and still get destroyed on the policy. And the media will definitely attack her over all of it.

@fawfulfan @leahmcelrath @emilycrockett @Mediaite It also bothers me that no one has ever asked her, and she has never volunteered, how she ignored GOP racism and misogyny and homophobia until she was 47 years old. It bothers a lot of other people who also care about those issues. Most converts address that.

@fawfulfan @leahmcelrath @emilycrockett @Mediaite I used to think of the Native American issue as a huge blunder, but an honest one. That didn't make it less of a liability, because it showed poor judgment and a huge blind spot on race. mediaite.com/opinion/politi…

@fawfulfan @leahmcelrath @emilycrockett @Mediaite It also showed poor judgment in responding to Trump's attacks, which she will face again as the nominee. But I viewed it as an honest mistake.

@fawfulfan @leahmcelrath @emilycrockett @Mediaite Then I saw the video of her claiming to have "lots of pictures" reflecting Native American heritage, and her awful, lawyerly responses to the issue at the time, and it no longer seemed like an honest blunder. mediaite.com/opinion/watch-…

@fawfulfan @leahmcelrath @emilycrockett @Mediaite She and Bernie have also not been telling the truth about M4A, which I would chalk up to possible ignorance in almost any other candidate, but tough to do with a wonk like Warren. mediaite.com/opinion/elizab…

@fawfulfan @leahmcelrath @emilycrockett @Mediaite So then there's the story she told on Wednesday, which I barely touched on in the story because I wanted to keep it focused just on the facts, which are that based on her on words and established facts, she could not have kept the job, pregnancy or not, because she lacked the

@fawfulfan @leahmcelrath @emilycrockett @Mediaite required education. I see the other wild contortions people are making to try and make this not a lie, but they all rely on ignoring one or more facts as related by Warren herself, and the central fact that she didn't have the courses she needed. In my article, I kindly noted...

@fawfulfan @leahmcelrath @emilycrockett @Mediaite that there are ways to interpret some versions of her story as technically mostly true, and merely wildly misleading, but not the one she tells now. That one's a lie.

@fawfulfan @leahmcelrath @emilycrockett @Mediaite So the combination of all of these things place her fundamental honesty in question, something I did not doubt at all as of about 5 weeks ago. mediaite.com/opinion/politi… That's a significant liability, politically.

@fawfulfan @leahmcelrath @emilycrockett @Mediaite And anyone who thinks I'm some kind of master archivist, and that CNN and the NY Times would never dig any of this up and hound her over it after she's the nominee, is delusional.

@fawfulfan @leahmcelrath @emilycrockett @Mediaite So those are the practical, analytical reasons this bothered me. But the things I've learned about Warren over the past few weeks has changed my personal opinion of her as well, which I'm happy to explain if you're still listening, Matthew and/or Leah.

@fawfulfan @leahmcelrath @emilycrockett @Mediaite Dinner break over. So, I might end up doing a column on this at some point, but there are things the two of you know about me that I wouldn't feel comfortable putting in a column at this point, that I can allude to here. Let's start with the understanding that...

@fawfulfan @leahmcelrath @emilycrockett @Mediaite I concede nothing, and ask you to cocede nothing, other than our mutual good faith. Here are my personal thoughts about Warren, and how they have evolved, most of it googleable for the peanut gallery. I loved the you didn't build it rant. I didn't like how she criticized Obama,

@fawfulfan @leahmcelrath @emilycrockett @Mediaite but I understood. I rooted for her in 2012, and although I thought her handling of the Native American controversy was clumsy, Brown's racism far eclipsed that, and I gave her credit for an honest mistake, at worst. In 2016, I thought she would be a poor VP pick, but retained...

@fawfulfan @leahmcelrath @emilycrockett @Mediaite a favorable view. It pissed me off when her old, inaccurate comments about a Hillary vote were used against Hillary, but I chalked it up to an honest mistake. It pissed me off a lot when she said the primary was rigged for Hillary.

@fawfulfan @leahmcelrath @emilycrockett @Mediaite The Republican thing was a different evolution for me, all googleable. At first it just irked me, and I just wanted to hear her explain it. It pissed me off a little more when the 2016 "just not THAT woman" bros would stan for Warren, but attack Hillary for being a teen...

@fawfulfan @leahmcelrath @emilycrockett @Mediaite Goldwater girl. That wasn't Warren's fault but all the talk about the 90s got me thinking about what it took to stay a Republican all those years. Then I looked at her rare comments about it over the years, and it looked like she used her GOP roots to her...

@fawfulfan @leahmcelrath @emilycrockett @Mediaite advantage when it suited her, like appealing to white voters in a race against Scott Brown, and danced away from it when it didn't. This isn't a crime to everyone, but it is to me, I hated it when Obama would project common ground with fuckers like Reagan.

@fawfulfan @leahmcelrath @emilycrockett @Mediaite As much as I love Obama, and lots of Democrats who play that shit, it definitely helped give us Trump by pretending Republicans in our lifetime ever stood for anything but fucking over minorities for fun and profit.

@fawfulfan @leahmcelrath @emilycrockett @Mediaite So that's a much bigger issue for me than for huge parts of Warren's base, but I'd wager it's a problem for lots of people who care about this particular issue. The three of us know converts, and they reckoned with it.

@fawfulfan @leahmcelrath @emilycrockett @Mediaite My evolution on the Native American issue informs this as well, so I'll circle back when I get to that. You both know why healthcare is so personal to me, and that's an area that I discussed earlier in the thread, but I'll elaborate here. I used to be a fan of M4A, but viewed...

@fawfulfan @leahmcelrath @emilycrockett @Mediaite It as politically infeasible. I have since grown to believe it is fatally flawed policy that is also going to become political cyanide in the general election. Read this and click all the links if you're interested why. google.com/url?sa=t&sourc…

@fawfulfan @leahmcelrath @emilycrockett @Mediaite Warren and Sanders aren't telling the truth about the plan, and they're getting away with it because the focus has been on the wrong things, but my experience with Obamacare tells me it will get eaten alive by the complicit media. None of the other candidates are perfect,

@fawfulfan @leahmcelrath @emilycrockett @Mediaite on healthcare, but Biden and O'Rourke are closest to me policy-wise, and Harris is philosophically. I've praised Warren's willingness to pivot, but her evasiveness, while earning praise from stans for "avoiding the bait," reads as dishonesty to non-stans. google.com/url?sa=t&sourc…

@fawfulfan @leahmcelrath @emilycrockett @Mediaite You can agree or disagree with my analysis, which I'm always happy to discuss, but you both know why this is important to me, and that it's not about protecting corporate profits or whatever other dumb shit the stans say.
So on to the Native American controversy. I've changed on

@fawfulfan @leahmcelrath @emilycrockett @Mediaite that these last few weeks as well, fully cognizant that my own whiteness clouded my views on this before. We focus on apology and forgiveness, and assume/credit good intentions, which I always did. If Warren seemed evasive, it was in rightous service to not getting trapped...

@fawfulfan @leahmcelrath @emilycrockett @Mediaite by racist fuckheads like Brown and Trump. It never occurred to me that Warren's actions were fucked up even if her claim turned out to be legit. I heard and empathized with the objections of Native people, but I didn't really get it, mostly because I'm white, and...

@fawfulfan @leahmcelrath @emilycrockett @Mediaite the kind of white that is barely versed in Native American issues. Then I saw these old clips, and a bunch of pennies dropped for me. mediaite.com/opinion/watch-…

@fawfulfan @leahmcelrath @emilycrockett @Mediaite First of all, there was the obvious lie about lots of pictures. But the clip that really opened my eyes was Warren saying yes, she would have identified as black if her family had told her the same story about a black grandparent. That's when I understood how offensive the entire

@fawfulfan @leahmcelrath @emilycrockett @Mediaite thing was. The entire sweep of it. Warren never sought advantage, nor did she ever seek out others from her claimed culture, she just used it as a fun fact and a way to maybe meet other white people who think it's cool to be a little bit minority. I mean, if she wanted to meet

@fawfulfan @leahmcelrath @emilycrockett @Mediaite other actual Cherokee, there are better places to do that than a law directory. And imagine her "high cheekbones" riff translated to an alleged black relative. It's a shame it took that analogy to bring it home to me, but there it is. I...

@fawfulfan @leahmcelrath @emilycrockett @Mediaite ...I don't think she's a secret racist @CharlesPPierce but along with the Republican thing, it demonstrates a lack of understanding and care about an issue that is of deep importance to me.

@fawfulfan @leahmcelrath @emilycrockett @Mediaite @CharlesPPierce And again, with all the other things I've discussed in this thread, it betrays a dishonesty that I didn't see before.
Finally, there's the teacher story.
Aside from again demonstrating dishonesty, it exposed Warren as an exploiter of unearned goodwill. This is the emotional...

@fawfulfan @leahmcelrath @emilycrockett @Mediaite @CharlesPPierce ... level at which I responded to the story. In her most recent tellings, Warren elicits applause from and for "fellow teachers," says it's a calling not a job, which rings false regardless of why she left that particular job because she worked hard to go on and do something else

@fawfulfan @leahmcelrath @emilycrockett @Mediaite @CharlesPPierce So I guess you can forgive that bullshit when she's trying to impress education voters or union members, but it's harder when you hear her in 2007 saying she just got restless and was looking for something to do and her debate bros said try law school. Sure, instead of...

@fawfulfan @leahmcelrath @emilycrockett @Mediaite @CharlesPPierce .. living my alleged dream and calling, I'll work way harder and longer and at more expense to not do that. Whatever.
But when she traded on those kids, said she'd still be helping them to this day if only... Fuck that.
It would have been fine to say "I devoted a year,...

@fawfulfan @leahmcelrath @emilycrockett @Mediaite @CharlesPPierce ... I wish it had been longer," that's an admirable thing. But to say you'd still be doing it today if not for, and to have seen her earlier comments, that was fucking painful. And now that I think about it, it's the same kind of sick ingratiation she tried with the NA thing.

@fawfulfan @leahmcelrath @emilycrockett @Mediaite @CharlesPPierce All that being said, Leah and Matthew, I'll still vote for her if she's the nominee, and I'll be open to any repairs she might attempt on this shit. And I'll always love and respect both of you. The end.

@fawfulfan @leahmcelrath @emilycrockett @Mediaite @CharlesPPierce Anyone who doubts my affection for Leah and Matthew, just ask anyone who knows me. I just spent 3 hours writing for free, and I don't write a motherfucking semicolon for free.