Copyright © 1998 NLThomas
All Rights Reserved

Cherokee Press Association
Copyright © 1998 CPA
All Rights Reserved

[The following appeared in the Northeastern State University Paper, "The Northeastern", Feb. 24, 1998.]

Joe Byrd, chief of the Cherokee Nation, must be taking classes from the Clinton School for Avoiding Responsibility.

In a feature article in Sunday’s Tulsa World, Byrd sounded more like Hilary Clinton in explaining the turmoil that has surrounded his administration for the past year than the leader of America’s second-largest Indian tribe.

He questioned whether the “attacks” on the Cherokee Nation are because of a change in leadership in the tribe, the color of his skin, or because he is the first Cherokee-speaking and full-blood Cherokee who has served as chief in over 100 years.

He said he believes Republican Senators. Jim Inhofe and Don Nickels and Republican Re. Tom Coburn might be the cause of many of his problems.

And while he says he wishes he hadn’t said he would only follow the laws of his tribe that he thought were legal, he never accepts any degree of responsibility for the state of affairs that have existed for the last year.

I was beginning to wonder when he was going to claim it is all part of a vast right-wing conspiracy to force him out of office and plead with the media to investigate.

But instead of dwelling on that I would like to answer the questions Mr. Byrd posed.

It is not the color of your skin. Although the question of race is valid in some cases, it is a poorly-veiled attempt to evoke sympathy and avoid answering hard questions in a straight-forward manner.

Is it because you speak the native language of the tribe you represent or because you are fool-blood Cherokee? Honestly, I don’t know what to say to that, except that it’s so nonsensical not even you can possibly believe it regardless of the depths you have sunk to in your own self-pity.

Is it because of a change of leadership? You might be getting a little closer to reality with that one Mr. Byrd.

Because it is easy to understand why your administration is openly and frequently criticized:

* While your secretary-treasurer is under investigation by the FBI for using tribal funds to pay her home mortgage when he was the tribal housing authority’s chief financial officer, you want to give her wire-transfer authority.

* More than one tribal councilor has had to sue your administration to get access to records that should be open to the legislative branch of your government.

* You lock your own tribes supreme court justices out of the tribal courthouse.

* Your deputy chief presides over a kangaroo court impeachment of the justices who have charged you with misuse of tribal funds.

* You fire the tribal marshals who serve a search warrant on your headquarters.

* You hand out huge bonuses to tribal employees when tribal leaders don’t even know how much money the tribe has.

So yes Mr. Byrd, after some reflection I do believe it has to be the change in tribal leadership, or more accurately, the lack of leadership.