Copyright © 1998 NLThomas
All Rights Reserved

Cherokee Press Association
Copyright © 1998 CPA
All Rights Reserved

In response to Joe Byrd's remarks in the Sunday Tulsa World article by Rob Martindale:

Byrd insults his own people's intelligent in his "excuses" for his failed leadership. Byrd has broken the law, is a fugitive from tribal justice, and now has the nerve to blame his troubles on the "color" of his skin in a transparent attempt to further divide our people with some kind of "degree of blood" "racism card."

He has certainly been schooled by all those non-Indian political lawyers with the DNC that he has paid in excess of $1,6Million dollars of our people's money to help keep him out of court or from being arrested at all costs!

The cost to the people of the Cherokee Nation under Byrd's leadership has been the dismantling of our constitutional government; a tribe that is facing congressional investigations, FBI investigations; the biggest deficient in tribal funds in modern history that under Cherokee law is a crime; and Byrd has the nerve to blame anyone but himself for his failed leadership?

What is this guy willing to be responsible for? It appears to be nothing? His failure is everyone else's fault because he is a full blood! But wait, he has taken credit for things done for our people by his predecessors..

For him to cry he is being "picked" on because he is the first full blood in modern history to be chief is a cruel insult to the rest of the full bloods of this tribe. There are scores of "full-bloods" who are leading the criticism against Byrd for what he has done to the tribe and our people.

Byrd is either the most unqualified, incompetent chief that the Cherokee Nation has had in modern day history, or he is the best "liar" we have seen in the office of principal chief and it appears that is possibly both!

We must keep in mind that Byrd was not "elected" by the majority of the people, he was "defaulted" into office when the clear front runner in the race was disqualified at the 12th hour. His total votes add up to about 12% of the total registered Cherokee voters. No wonder the laws and constitution of the Cherokee Nation put confidence in the "majority" of the Cherokee people to elect leaders! You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you can't fool all the people all of the time!

Byrd is so desperate for support and a way to prolong the crisis that gives an excuse for, and will continue to allow the BIA to protect him from having to answer for his crimes, that by his racist remarks it appears he is going for a last ditch effort to get all the Cherokee full bloods to support him and come to his rescue! Byrd had better wake up and smell the council fires because our "full-blood" brothers and sisters are far to wise and educated not to know that he has sold everyone out for his own 15 minutes of fame. He is insulting the entire tribe with his remarks.

He is manufacturing and orchestrating potential violence with his remarks! His design is transparent, he wants to incite riot and a dangerous environment just to keep him from facing up to the real issue here -- the criminal charges against him!

He must have learned the "divide and conquer", create a smoke screen "spin" tactic from all his Washington, D.C. attorneys that he has paid $millions of Cherokee people's money just to keep him from going to court and facing charges for misuse of tribal and federal funds that could have built homes, repaired homes, provided medical care and medicines, college educations and other important and need services for our "full-blood" and general tribal members.

He must have watched "Wag the Dog" to many times.

The truth is self-evident, Byrd has failed as a leader. How dare he have the nerve to blame his failures on his fellow Cherokees! A leader leads, he don't make excuses!!! Byrd is a fugitive from tribal justice with (4) outstanding warrants for his arrest. Give all of us a break Joe Byrd, and turn yourself in!

O. G. Baldridge