Twyla Barnes is a genealogist of Cherokee heritage (she’s 7/32nds Cherokee) who runs a blog about affairs in that community, and after a couple of weeks being out of pocket while the Elizabeth Warren-Spreading Bull controversy has unfolded she let loose what looks like a poisoned arrow into Warren’s wobbly U.S. Senate campaign in Massachusetts. Via Legal Insurrection, which has been instrumental in airing Warren’s dirty laundry as a faux American Indian…

I am writing this letter in the hope it will help end the current situation you have found yourself in. It seems you are being ripped apart in the media because of your claim of Cherokee ancestry and you don’t like it. According to a recent article in the Boston Globe, you believe your opponent is “creating a distraction” by “ridiculously” attacking you “with questions that have already been answered.” It seems you would like the “attacks” against your claims of Cherokee ancestry to stop so I thought I would offer some advice on how to make it stop.

Tell the truth….

While you cling to a family story and the inaccurate report that ONE document was found that supports your claim, we real Cherokees understand that those things mean nothing. You see, we Cherokees have lots and lots and lots of documentation supporting our claims of our ancestry. Our Cherokee ancestors are found on every roll of the Cherokee Nation (30+ rolls!) dating back to before the removal and in all sorts of other documentation, including but not limited to claims against the US government for lost property; the Moravian missionary records; ration lists before and after the forced removal, etc…yet your ancestors are found in NONE of those records.

But, your ancestors are found in plenty of historical records, and every time, they are found living as white people among other white people. Never are your ancestors ever found living among the Cherokees. Never, never, never, never…….yet you claim they were Cherokee….

So, Ms. Warren, you see, it is not just your opponent who has questions. We Cherokees have questions too and those questions have yet to be answered by you. You see, for us Cherokees, this is not political. This is about the truth.

You have claimed something you had no right to claim — our history and our heritage and our identity. Those things belong to us, and us alone. These are not things we choose to embrace when they benefit us and then cast aside when we no longer need them, but that is what you seem to have done by “checking a box” for several years and then no longer “checking” it more recently, when apparently you no longer needed it.

Barnes went on the radio in Boston yesterday and clobbered Warren even further. A little taste…

“I think she owes the Cherokee Nation an apology, I think she owes all American Indians an apology, and I think she owes the American public an apology”

She’s said that several Cherokee genealogists – Cherokee tend to be into genealogy, and get pretty good at keeping records on such things – have been looking into Warren’s background and found zero evidence she has a drop of Cherokee blood.

Several people who are experienced researchers in Cherokee genealogy have been working together exploring Elizabeth Warren’s ancestry. They have uncovered many documents that, combined, paint a very clear picture that Warren descends from white people who had no connection whatsoever to the Cherokee Nation. These documents will be posted soon.

Well, that “no connection” part isn’t exactly true. After all, it’s been uncovered that Warren had an ancestor who helped round up Cherokee for the Trail of Tears, which means that the Warren family probably had Cherokee blood after all – it’s just that blood was on their clothes rather than in their veins.

What’s a trifle or two when you’re an esteemed lefty professor with Harvard and Penn on your curriculum vitae, after all?

As Hot Air notes today, what Warren ought to do is to call a press conference and apologize, say that it’s been widely thought in her family that there was Cherokee ancestry and that she wasn’t trying to glom on to minority status to advance her career. But the damage is pretty much done – especially now that folks like Barnes are on the case and determined to ruin her political career for having posed as a Cherokee in order to rise as an affirmative action baby through the ranks of academia.

After all, what Warren has essentially done here is akin to going around claiming victim status because “I was at Auschwitz,” and then having the word get out that while that’s true you were a camp guard rather than a prisoner. How do you unring that bell? “Yes, but it was very traumatic?”

Scott Brown is a middling conservative at best, but he’s a terrific politician and a Republican that Massachusetts Democrats have proven they’ll vote for. Elizabeth Warren is showing she’s the same loathsome, incompetent fraud that Martha Coakley was. And with this original professional sin having been laid bare it’s difficult to see how she’ll do any better than Coakley did three years ago.