Massachusetts Democratic Gov. Deval Patrick and Republican Sen. Scott Brown attended the Friday funeral of a slain Massachusetts police officer, Kevin Ambrose, who died Monday while on duty.
There is, of course, a noticeable absence from the list of mourners. Democratic Senate candidate Elizabeth Warren apparently couldn’t be bothered. She’s hanging out at the blogger convention Netroots Nation, which features such events as “Beyond Occupy: What Does a New Economic System Look Like?”
One possible reason for Warren’s attendance at the convention is a meeting of the American Indian Caucus. As a self-proclaimed Cherokee, Warren undoubtedly took the opportunity to share some of her sage wisdom, and — if the crowd was lucky — a few of her family’s long cherished Native American recipes.
Recent polls show Warren and Brown in a tight race. Earlier this year, Warren became the focus of intense scrutiny for claiming early in her career to be an American Indian minority. The Harvard Law School professor denies that she did this to gain an unfair hiring advantage.
After initially refusing to answer questions, Warren claimed to be 1/32 Cherokee — a claim that cannot be verified. The great-great-great grandmother Warren claims was Cherokee was classified as “white” on the 1860 census and was married to a man who assisted in the tribe’s forced removal from Georgia, according to a Cornell Law School professor.