In Massachusetts, file this one under “You Can’t Make It Up” – as the controversy has grown over Harvard Professor Elizabeth Warren’s decision to cast herself as a Native American early in her legal career, Warren finally broke five days of silence yesterday and offered this truly bizarre explanation – she did it to make friends.  As the Boston Herald reports, Democratic Senate candidate Elizabeth Warren, fending off questions about whether she used her Native American heritage to advance her career, said today she enrolled herself as a minority in law school directories for nearly a decade because she hoped to meet other people with tribal roots.  “I listed myself in the directory in the hopes that it might mean that I would be invited to a luncheon, a group something that might happen with people who are like I am. Nothing like that ever happened, that was clearly not the use for it and so I stopped checking it off,” said Warren.

But that’s not all – the Herald goes on to report that Warren may not even be 1/32 Native American after all —  Warren’s statements come as genealogists at the New England Historic Genealogical Society were unable to back up earlier accounts that her great great great grandmother is Cherokee. While Warren’s great great great grandmother, named O.C. Sarah Smith, is listed on a electronic transcript of a 1894 marriage application as Cherokee, the genealogists are unable to find the actual record or a photograhic copy of it, Society spokesman Tom Champoux said.

So how does Elizabeth Warren know that she’s Native American given the genealogists’ findings and the fact that her campaign has been unable to produce a single shred of evidence to support it? High cheekbones.  Seriously.  As the Weekly Standard reports, Speaking to a reporter on a local news station in Boston, Democratic Senate candidate Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts cited her ancestor’s “high cheekbones” (quoting an aunt) as evidence of her Native American heritage:

But there’s even more – one legal blog astutely observes that Warren’s latest explanation that she checked the Native American box to meet new friends with tribal roots, simply doesn’t hold water.  Why?  The Legal Insurrection blog writes, Why doesn’t it add up? Because the section listing “minority” faculty doesn’t list which minority, so Warren listing herself that way would not be a means of meeting other Native Americans, because no one else would know she was claiming to be Native American just from the listing.  (I wonder how Harvard knew if she never told them and it never came up?)… I checked, and her full bios also did not disclose her Native American status.  Perhaps Warren just lumped all minorities together in her friendship plans….Something tells me this is not over.

Needless to say, Warren’s latest bizarre claims have been met with incredulousness by the Boston media.  While the examples are countless, click below to watch New England Cable News’ Jim Braude’s reaction to Warren’s press conference yesterday….

• From ABC’s The Note today – ABC’s Rick Klein weighs in on the mounting problems for Massachusetts Senate candidate Elizabeth Warren: “You don’t win elections in May, but you can start to lose them.”
• From Politico’s Morning Score – Warren Loses Another Day.

Meanwhile, while Warren entered semi-meltdown mode at her event in Braintree yesterday, the Associated Press reports that Scott Brown was at the Bunker Hill Community College reminding students of his bipartisan, pro-jobs record.  In a speech to students and faculty at Bunker Hill Community College, Brown touted several bills he sponsored that passed with bipartisan support and his willingness to appear at President Barack Obama’s side during signing ceremonies.  Brown, who took office in 2010 after winning a special election to fill the seat of the late Democratic Sen. Edward Kennedy, lambasted a bitterly partisan Washington environment in which Democrats and Republicans constantly question each other’s motives and “look at each other as enemies who need to be defeated at all costs.”  “We want people with convictions and backbone, not a bunch of pushovers who agree on everything because they believe in nothing,” Brown said.