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Go Home Sliming Elizabeth Warren

JONATHAN COHN OCTOBER 7, 2011

Sliming Elizabeth Warren

BY JONATHAN COHN

Massachusetts Senator Scott Brown is taking a lot of flack for something he said about his top Democratic challenger, Elizabeth Warren.  A few days ago, during a primary debate, Warren had joked that "I kept my clothes on" when finding ways to pay for college. It was a reference to Brown's decision to pose nude, in a spread for Cosmopolitan magazine, while he was a student at Boston College. On Thursday, a radio host asked Brown if he had a response. "Thank god," Brown quipped.

It's a pretty boorish statement, as my colleague Timothy Noah notes, although I tend to give public figures a little slack in episodes like these. (Everybody says stupid things sometimes, particularly when trying to be funny on live radio.) But it's the rest of Brown's quote that seems truly objectionable. Here it is:

Bottom line is, you know, I didn’t go to Harvard. You know, I went to the school of hard knocks. And I did whatever I had to do to pay for school. And for people who know me, and know what I’ve been through, mom and dad married and divorced four times each. You know, some real challenges growing up. You know, whatever. You know, let them throw stones. I did what I had to do. But not for having that opportunity, I never would have been able to pay for school, and never would have gone to school, and I wouldn’t probably be talking to you. So, whatever.

Presumably this is the way Brown and the Republicans plan to attack Warren during the campaign -- as an elitist who's out of touch with average Americans. She's an intellectual. She's had an easy life. Why, she even went to Harvard.

But it's not true -- not even the Harvard part. She teaches there, sure. But her degrees are from the University of Houston and the Rutgers School of Law in Newark. And while she didn't grow up in in poverty, she didn't grow up in privilege, either. As Jodi Kantor recounted in the New York Times a few years ago,

The defining event of Elizabeth Warren’s life may have taken place before she was born, when a business partner ran off with the money her father had scraped together to start a car dealership. She arrived a few years later, in 1949, another mouth for a strapped family to feed. But she used that mouth to talk her way into a debate scholarship at George Washington University at age 16.

She became a speech therapist, then a lawyer — she hung a shingle and did wills and real estate closings — then a part-time law instructor, and finally a leading scholar of bankruptcy. Her research helped change the stereotype of bankrupt people as feckless deadbeats: many, she showed, are middle-class workers upended by divorce or illness.

While Ms. Warren was building her career, her father became a maintenance man and her three older brothers back in Oklahoma worked in construction, car repair and the oil fields. Among them, they have endured all manner of financial crisis, including foreclosure, according to Ms. Warren’s husband.

“I learned early on what debt means, how vulnerable it makes people, what the security of owning a home means,” Ms. Warren said, her eyes welling. Even today, said Ms. Warren’s daughter, Amelia Warren Tyagi, her mother is so frugal that she eats shriveled grapes out of the fruit bowl.

Biography isn't destiny in politics. If it was, the sons of the Roosevelt and Kennedy clans would have been conservatives who coddled the rich. 

But when it comes to championing the underdog, Brown can't match Warren's record. And so he's resorted to attacking her life story -- even if that means distorting it.

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24 comments

Wish I lived in Massachusetts so I could vote for her.

- ballston

October 7, 2011 at 10:38am

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The Republicans descend to Character Assassination once again. When you can't argue the facts, pound the table.

- AllanL5

October 7, 2011 at 11:00am

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Excellent post.

- polcereal

October 7, 2011 at 11:44am

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Wish she'd run for president so I could vote for her. It is so rare to find in public life someone who understands the true nature of our economic system -- rather than the libertarian inflected blatherers of both the left and right. We are being preyed upon by an out of control finance sector and no one in political life, certainly including Obama, Baucus, Schumer, Frank, Geithner or Summers, has either the brains or the balls to recognize or deal with it. No wonder the finance industry is afraid of this woman. They should be afraid, very afraid. She belongs in the Senate if not yet in the White House.

- roidubouloi

October 7, 2011 at 12:04pm

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you can't say he actually distorted her record, he only talked about himself and did not mention her specifically, just the so called others who went to Harvard and had it made, certainly the implication is that it was Warren but to be fair your inference can always be denied. I have to say I found the way he talked to be pretty damn sad. "You know, whatever. You know, let them throw stones.... I did what I had to do. But not for having that opportunity...so whatever." Is he a 16 year old girl? And what opportunity is her refering to? The one where he traded on his looks for cash? And just what is other people in his situation who don't have his looks do, be content with being poor? He sounds like a manchild, a perpetual adolescent. I hope Warren cleans his clock next year, if he does lose though I am sure he will run for Governor later on so I am sure he will try to milk this career for as long as he can.

- blackton

October 7, 2011 at 12:13pm

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It's my understanding that Scott Brown went to Tufts. I didn't know that was the school of hard knocks.

- brokensq

October 7, 2011 at 12:36pm

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Depends on what fraternity he was in.

- ironyroad

October 7, 2011 at 12:47pm

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Now this is great opinion journalism.

- WandreyCer

October 7, 2011 at 1:26pm

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Blackton makes a good point. This graduate of Tufts and Boston College Law married to a TV anchor can't string together two coherent sentences. And this example is typical. Hopefully we'll elect Elizabeth Warren to the Senate here in Massachusetts for all the right reasons, but also to send the message to those in other states that we're all not Mass-holes like this guy.

- appleton

October 7, 2011 at 1:27pm

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In fact he was in the Zeta Psi fraternity, which apparently tries to limit its chapters to upper-tier schools.

- frippo

October 7, 2011 at 1:39pm

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Figures.

- ironyroad

October 7, 2011 at 1:56pm

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It's strange. As far as Republicans are concerned, George Bush never went to Yale, or if he did he was a slacker, which apparently makes up for the offense; but Elizabeth Warren went to Harvard even if she didn't.

- ironyroad

October 7, 2011 at 2:01pm

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Isn't Brown the guy who bragged that his teenage daughters were single during his acceptance speech? Stay classy frat boy!

- WandreyCer

October 7, 2011 at 2:01pm

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"So, whatever"? He really ended a thought that way in an interview? I believe you're being too kind to him, blackton.

- cspencef

October 7, 2011 at 2:52pm

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I feel sorry for a man who has to pose nude for money; but not when he has to make fun of the appearance of a woman,

- Nusholtz

October 7, 2011 at 3:43pm

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Don't feel sorry for models please; I was one and I learned so much about painting and sculpture in the process. And it paid about 10 times what my slide library/department assistant job paid, also educational; on the other hand I could have slung hash or washed dishes so? People seriously need to rethink their attitudes about art, about the body, about nudity. None are shameful or wrong. Attacking Elizabeth Warren is flat out shameful. THAT is wrong, distorting facts is wrong.

- Sophia

October 7, 2011 at 5:18pm

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PS without models, how could we learn to draw? So please.

- Sophia

October 7, 2011 at 5:19pm

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This might come off as a backhanded compliment or as an out of place remark or something, but, am I the only one who thinks future Senator Warren is actually fairly attractive for a 61 year old? She's a less exotic Arianna Huffington in a way. I'm just saying, especially if I were a couple decades older and gray & hairy like Scott Brown, I wouldn't dream of disparaging her looks. And Sophia, if you're not ashamed, why don't you link to some of your modeling work? Otherwise, we don't believe you. Plus, I, uh, I'm learning to draw. Yeah, I could use some, um, lesson materials. Yeah, that's the ticket.

- Konstantin

October 7, 2011 at 8:03pm

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No, Konstantin, I agree. I remember Jon Stewart saying to her admiringly on the Daily Show "I want to make out with you" -- he meant, because she is just so good at articulating ideas of fairness and why the banks should be regulated; but in fact she does project an aura of femininity allied with focused intelligence, a seductive combination.

- ironyroad

October 7, 2011 at 8:31pm

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Konstantin - I was looking for the right place to post this and here you are. I have now heard from four men now (ranging from 30 to 60) since this whole thing began who said the following things: "Brown's wrong, she's adorable", "Come on, that librarian with the cute figure thing? She's got it" etc. I cracked up.

- WandreyCer

October 8, 2011 at 3:35pm

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I've got to stand with TNC on this: The two aren't equal, but both should have gone unsaid. This started with Elizabeth Warren as smart ass. Scott Brown's comeback was harsh, but that's how insults are traded. That said, I'll be happy if this hurts Brown. I first became aware of Warren from a pre-crisis Fresh Air interview on how the credit card industry actually works. Her advocacy on behalf of the average American citizen is admirable, and I want her to have more power.

- kpidcoc

October 8, 2011 at 11:10pm

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This stuff (including George Will's misguided attempt to portray her as advocating collectivism) will only help Warren. And yeah, she's cute...

- Robert Powell

October 9, 2011 at 2:17pm

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Warren won't be confused with any supermodels any time soon, sure. But there is nothing sexier in this world than a woman with an enormous set of brains. That is all.

- Tristan

October 9, 2011 at 6:31pm

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Irony, banks ARE regulated. And if that regulation is inadequate your side had 2 years running the whole gov't, so if there's a problem today, well, you get my drift.

- butchie b

October 10, 2011 at 2:49pm

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