An old friend is back in the news today. The elaborately decorated Major-General Neville Donohue.
If your kids have ever told you to get a life it may have crossed your mind that a) you’ve already got one and b) where would you go to get another one. For any number of people the answer to b) is easy. You borrow one. And you don’t have to be an impoverished no-hoper to do it, take, for instance, Elizabeth Warren.
Liz borrowed a better life by ticking the Are you a native American box on the application form to various law schools. It worked wonders at Harvard, it needed to up its representation of native Americans. Apparently the former Obama Special Advisor to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and former Chairperson of the Congressional Oversight Panel later told the world that “I listed myself in the directory in the hopes that it might mean that I would be invited to a luncheon, a group, something that might happen with people who are like I am”.
The evidence for her American native heritage was her high cheek bones and some discussion at a family gathering. Cool.
It led to some controversy. This is a darling of the left and presidential candidate in waiting, just one Hilary heartbeat away. Serious evidence was needed. Good news, some was found.
With the impertinent jackanapes of the press querying the bona fides of Harvard Lore School’s first Native American female professor, the Warren campaign got to work and eventually turned up a great-great-great-grandmother designated as Cherokee in the online transcription of a marriage application of 1894.
Alas, the actual original marriage license does not list Great-Great-Great-Gran’ma as Cherokee, but let’s cut Elizabeth Fauxcahontas Crockagawea Warren some slack here. She couldn’t be black. She would if she could, but she couldn’t. But she could be 1/32nd Cherokee, and maybe get invited to a luncheon with others of her kind – “people who are like I am,” 31/32nds white – and they can all sit around celebrating their diversity together.
Fauxcahontas is not making so much of her Fauxhecan ancestry these days.
It might be possible to find some Australian examples, but there’s a law against it.
There is however a clear connection between the pathology that leads to fake racial identification and that which leads to fake medals.
You may remember that our Neville failed to appear in court last February to face charges of falsely claiming to be a war veteran and to wearing medals to which he was not entitled. On that occasion a letter from someone at the Alfred Hospital was furnished establishing beyond a shadow of doubt that he had terminal cancer and would die within weeks.
Thanks to the expert care for which the Alfred is renowned he has survived long enough to fail to appear several more times. The most recent occasion, in October, was his seventh failure to appear and this time he told reporters that it was because he was on active military service on the day. The Alfred will no doubt be using his photo in their advertising.
His next opportunity to fail to appear is at the Ringwood Magistrates’ Court in March when he can avoid answering an additional 17 charges of impersonating a public official, financial deceptions and the odd driving offense. I’d book a seat if I thought he would be there.
bobmcgee 