This is a case where I can’t wait to hear from The Donald.
A few tweets so far on 1/1024th Native American DNA Senator Warren:
“This about the same results i would get to prove my chihuahua is part wolf.”
“You’re making the “one drop” theory a thing dude. How do you guys keep doing this?”
“You’re saying POTUS is more likely American Indian than Warren, right?”
“Human DNA has more in common with a banana than Liz has with native American.”
“Elizabeth Warren DNA pitch meeting:
WARREN: I’m an American Indian!
MEDIA: So, like 50%?
W: Lower.
MEDIA: 25%?
W: Actually 0.0976%.
MEDIA: Perfect! And they used Cherokee DNA to test against?
W: Nope!
MEDIA: Any Indian DNA?
W: Mainly Mexican.
MEDIA: These results are solid!”
Here’s that last little glitch noted at the Boston Globe:
To make up for the dearth of Native American DNA, Bustamante used samples from Mexico, Peru, and Colombia to stand in for Native American. That’s because scientists believe that the groups Americans refer to as Native American came to this land via the Bering Straight about 12,000 years ago and settled in what’s now America but also migrated further south. His report explained that the use of reference populations whose genetic material has been fully sequenced was designed “for maximal accuracy.”
Bustamante said he can tease out the markers that these South Americans would have in common with Native Americans on the North American continent.
Some of the usual suspects are defending her by saying THIS PROVES TRUMP IS RACIST and LIZZY IS RIGHT! The more nearly astute of them see 1/1024 as, well… under-reach. So all they’ve got is pointing out that this pre-emptive strike means her POTUS campaign team is really on the ball in defusing negative stories. CNN:
And so, we get this video. And the DNA test. And all the documents. To show, yes, that Warren’s claim that she had some Native American blood is almost certainly true, but also to show that she has a full campaign team who understands how modern campaigns work and is at the ready to deal — and deal effectively — with any sorts of problems that arise during the course of the campaign.
If that’s true, they failed by; a) waiting so long, b) not realizing the story is really about attempted appropriation of affirmative action hiring to further her career, c) less than full attention to the scientific details, and d) exposing her to easily predictable ridicule and making a 5 minute video about it.