, Columnist
Elizabeth Warren and the High Price of Progress
No one cared when Bill Clinton claimed Cherokee ancestry.
Caught in the crosswind.
Photographer: Scott Olson/Getty Images
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President Bill Clinton claimed at a forum in 1998 that his grandmother was “one-quarter Cherokee.” The assertion, from a politician with a not-always-sterling reputation for truthfulness, went unheralded.
Clinton’s mother had earlier been described, in a 1992 article, as a “descendant of Irish farmers and Cherokee Indians.” The genealogical receipts were never in evidence. But families have their stories; few seemed to care one way or another.