Scott Brown misrepresented his ancestry to get mentioned in the NY Times when he was modeling

[highplainsdem]

Found this via a Twitter post. Brown apparently lied about his ancestry to get himself included in a long NY Times article (on "Modeling: New Faces from Old Families&quot , according to this article:

http://weston.patch.com/blog_posts/scott-brown-arthur-prentice-rugg-and-misrepresentation-of-ancestry

In all the brouhaha about Elizabeth Warren's claim of Native American ancestry, a major item has been overlooked by the so-called liberal media. In the 1980's, after Scott Brown appeared in Cosmo, he was interviewed by the New York Times. In that interview, he claimed to be the great-grandson of Arthur Prentice Rugg, a chief justice of the Massachusetts Supreme Court in the 19th century, and he said he found it amusing to be reading cases in which his great-grandfather was involved. Here's a snip from the original article:

Until a few weeks ago, Scott Brown was a 22-year-old first-year law student at Boston College Law School who frequently ran across opinions written by his great-grandfather, Arthur Prentice Rugg, former Chief Justice of the Massachusetts Supreme Court.

"I read many of his cases this year," he said, "which I found amusing."

The problem for Scott? He was not Rugg's great-grandson, they were only distantly related. The Times had to print a retraction a few days later.

PDF file of the original NYT article: http://bmgmedia.s3.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/NYTRugg.pdf

The Times' retraction: http://bmgmedia.s3.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/NYT-Rugg-correction-001.pdf



Even if Brown is distantly related to Arthur Prentice Rugg (Brown's mother's maiden name is Rugg), being just "distantly related" wouldn't have been enough to get him into the Times article with models like Catherine Oxenburg. He would have had to claim more direct descent from someone famous, as he did...along with making some less-than-modest remarks about the "good cerebral work" he was doing in law school.

[AzDar]

1. Good find.

Fuck Scott Brown.

[elleng]

2. Suggests there's something WRONG with this guy,

Harboring guilt for all these years? WANTING the lie to be discovered, hence raising Elizabeth Warren ancestry issue???

[Bolo Boffin]

3. It's Always Projection

To quote Cerberus at Sadly, No.

[highplainsdem]

17. True.

[GreenTea]

4. Republican Scott Brown is slimy liar - Cheers to Elizabeth Warren!

[flamingdem]

5. repuke projection reared it's head

and let's hope it cost him the seat

[Cha]

6. Well, whadda know!

I referenced his Cosmo gig earlier..

Exactly, Mr Cosmopolitan finally

took his facade off and exposed himself as ..ooops, Nothing.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=1413491

Little did I know..but, is it not a pattern with these aggressive machos? Project project project?

[MariaM83]

7. I wouldn't put it past him, BUT

isn't it possible he had honestly believed, based on mistaken family lore, that he was the great-grandson, until the story was published and other more knowledgeable relatives read the article and set him straight about family history?

Regardless, great find, whoever dug that up.

Hope, this story gets airplay.

[lame54]

9. then couldn't he have some understanding...

and think that Warren experienced the same?

No - he had to play Gotcha

and it blew up in his face - because - of course - he was wrong

[starroute]

18. You have to be pretty out to lunch to not know who was your grand-grandfather

When I was a little kid, my parents had photographs of their own grandparents, would tell me family stories about them, and so forth. That's pretty hard to be mistaken about.

[highplainsdem]

19. True. If questioned about this, Brown would have to admit to lying about the relationship, or

he'd have to accuse his mother of lying about it.

[bigtree]

8. funny

. . . he obviously doesn't look like a Rugg.

[Generic Other]

10. He lies like a Rugg

bada boom!

[renie408]

16. **groan**

[Oilwellian]

11. If there's anyone related to Rugg, it would be...

Donald Trump.

[DonRedwood]

12. more lies from a lying liar!

[DonRedwood]

13. Now he is lying about lying!

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10021417879

[Overseas]

14. Gee. Another lying modern Republican.

[porphyrian]

15. Hypocrisy from a republican?! Surely you jest! n/t

[DonRedwood]

20. kick for the evening crowd