U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren accused Republican challenger Geoff Diehl of attending a rally sponsored by an anti-Muslim hate group during a debate Friday night.
Her source for the description of the rally sponsor is the Southern Poverty Law Center, which is itself a hate group, as well as a serial bearer of false witness. But no matter that. Let’s talk about where the alleged hate rally took place.
Warren brought it up while talking about President Donald Trump’s attempted travel ban on six predominately Muslim countries where terrorism flourishes. Warren was against the travel ban. But it’s not enough to be against it as a policy matter. You must also accuse your opponent of bigotry.
“We know what this was all about. And we know where you stand on it,” Warren said. “You joined a rally organized by the largest anti-Muslim hate group in America. And that’s not who we are as a country. Immigration makes us stronger. This is how we build a future.”
She kept going for a while, and then moderator Jon Keller noted that Diehl wanted to respond. Here’s the back-and-forth:
Geoff Diehl: “I am not sure that she’s talking about as far as a rally with …”
Elizabeth Warren: “It was a rally in Bern, orga-ed, uh, uh, uh, by, uh, Act for America, a group that the Southern Poverty Law Center designated as a hate group, and described as the largest anti-Muslim group in America. It was on April 22nd of this year. You were there.”
Geoff Diehl: “I don’t know what she’s talking about. So we’ll have to clear that up later.”
Yes, let’s.
But first: Imagine Diehl’s confusion when presented with rally content he didn’t remember in a place he’s not familiar with.
Where is the place Warren was talking about?
Now, there’s a Bern in Switzerland. It’s the capital, as a matter of fact. But that’s not it.
Closer to home, there’s one in Wisconsin, and another one in Kansas.
But no. Those aren’t it either.
If we’re going to play the near-homophone game, there’s a Burns Flat in Oklahoma. It’s about 114 miles west of where Warren spent much of her childhood in Norman, Oklahoma.
But that’s not it, either.
Turns out Warren, the United States senator from Massachusetts, who has represented Massachusetts in Congress since 2013, who has lived in Massachusetts since 1995, was referring to …
Bourne
As in: Sounds like “born.”
It’s a town of about 20,000 people about 67 miles from Elizabeth Warren’s official residence in Cambridge.
But not only that, it’s one of the most famous place names in Massachusetts.
You know: Bourne Bridge. The Bourne Rotary. Have to go through Bourne to go down the Cape.
Now, Bourne is 209thin per capita income of the 351 cities and towns in Massachusetts. That makes it one of the poorest places on Cape Cod. So it’s not likely that Warren has ever stood in line at a cheese shop in Bourne.
But it’s also a place where the vast majority of Massachusetts residents have been. Probably more than 99 percent of the people you randomly stop on any neighborhood street in the state could tell you where Bourne is. And in all my life, I’ve never heard anyone living in Massachusetts mispronounce it.
Wonder if Elizabeth Warren has ever mispronounced “Chatham.”
Now, some of you are thinking this is no big deal. (If so, I’m guessing you’re not from Massachusetts.)
So let’s go to the substance.
Turns out Diehl, according to campaign spokesman Holly Robichaud, attended a rally at the Bourne Rotary on Sunday, April 22 called Back the Blue.
It was 10 days after Sergeant Sean Gannon of the Yarmouth Police Department (also on the Cape, about a half-hour drive away) was shot and killed by a career criminal he was trying to arrest.
The career criminal, incidentally, has an unusual name that sounds Slavic. Religion had nothing to do with the search for him or with the shooting. The case also had nothing to do with immigration. The defendant is an American citizen. Sergeant Gannon was just doing his job, and the career criminal just didn’t want to go back to jail.
Neither did the rally have to do with religion or immigration. I remember driving by it, while on my way to something else.
It mostly consisted of people standing and holding signs supporting police officers in general and Sean Gannon in particular.
The Cape Cod Timesreported that signs at the rotary included such hateful sentiments as “Support Our Police,” “Blue Lives Matter,” and “Cops Are Heroes.”
Perhaps Senator Warren can let us know what the Southern Poverty Law Center thinks of that.
WBZ-TV Channel 4 
