Montana PBS Debate: ‘You’re a big guy. Just apologize.’
Imagine you are a guest allowed to be in the parade at the world-famous Crow Fair, also known as the “Tipi Capital Of The World.”
This massive event is not only a de facto family reunion of the Apsaalooke (Crow), but was created as a showcase of unity amongst tribal and non-tribal peoples.
People from elders to little kids are proudly decked out in traditional finery and regalia, and after being part of such a beautiful event you realize why it is “world famous.”
When Tim Sheehy rode in the parade, he could have noted how the Apsaalooke people treated him not only as a guest, but a friend. Hell, he could even talk about the delicious Indian taco he perhaps enjoyed.
But instead of any of this, all while knowing alcohol is strictly prohibited at this event (as there are visibly numerous signs posted all over explicitly say so), Sheehy, a candidate for the United States Senate – who claims he is a “follower of Christ” as I saw on one flyer – instead decided to “bear false witness” against Indigenous families who treated him with warm hospitality and respect by maligning them with racist stereotypes about drunk Indians being a “tough crowd” throwing Coors Light cans at you if they don’t like you.
“I strapped on a Sheehy sign to a horse and rode through the Crow Parade and if you know a tough crowd, that’s (it),” the Republican U.S. Senate candidate said. “They let you know if they like you or not. There’s Coors Light cans flying by your head as you’re riding by. You know they respect that. You go where the action is and they say, ‘You know, the guy’s not that bad. He rode the horse through the parade. That’s cool.’”
I don’t know what kind of area Sheehy grew up in, but here in Montana, I will let you know making up bald-faced lies about people who were proud to have you as a guest (at the time) to make yourself sound cool is not “cool.”
And while this detail seems pedantic, the insider joke in Indian country was they especially knew his tall tale wasn’t true because even if they do choose to imbibe, Crows don’t drink Coors Light, usually they drink Bud Light. But in Sheehy’s circles, that beer would be considered “woke” because a TikToker trans woman made a brief promotion with the brand leading to a boycott and weird conservative outrage where celebrities like Kid Rock shot up cases of the brand.
(Sheehy often introduces himself with a cringe joke about his name also being his “pronouns” in efforts to mock his Montana transgender and Two Spirit constituents.)
But Coors Light is brought up again when Sheehy claimed he was roping and branding with a friend named Turk Stovall, where Sheehy said “… it’s a great way to bond with (Crows) every year. So, it’s a great way to bond with them every year. If you miss, you get a Coors Light on the side of your head.”
Personally, I doubt someone would throw a beer can at someone as well-built as Sheehy.
While Sheehy’s alleged anecdote of happenings on Stovall’s personal ranch does not represent the Crow Nation (the tribe, it must be noted, says Stovall is not an enrolled member), if Stovall feels upset or thrown under the bus about Sheehy’s claims, perhaps he should reconsider whom he calls a friend.
And while I don’t doubt Stovall’s Crow descendancy, his biography lists his family as being “6th generation” Montanans, to which Montana Natives find amusing seeing as tribes like the Crow have inhabited the Montana land permanently since the early 1700s and tribes like the Salish state they’ve been in Montana for 10,000 years — the end of the last Ice Age.
In contrast, Sheehy fits the exact definition of “carpetbagger,” which Merriam Webster defines as “a nonresident or new resident who seeks private gain from an area often by meddling in its business or politics.”
The rhinestone cowboy, Sheehy, also recently bought Little Belt Cattle Co. dude ranch where he bans access to all Montanans unless they can afford $12,500 elk hunting permits which he claims grants “private access to over 500,000 acres of National Forest, with access to over 5,000 acres of state land directly south of the property.”
While Sheehy has made an about-face and denies ambitions to further divvy up lands to make the Montana’s outdoors an exclusive playground for millionaire and billionaires, until he filed for office he was literally on the board of the Property and Environmental Research Center (PERC), which for decades had a cartoonishly-villainous blueprint outlining in great detail how all federal lands — including Yellowstone National Park and the Grand Canyon — should be sold off to exploit mining mineral rights.
Sheehy neglected to say he was on on the PERC board as late as 2022, only calling it an “oversight” when forced to comply with the disclosure.
A very curious “oversight,” indeed.
Or, more likely, he was caught lying yet again, like when he accidentally shot himself at Glacier National Park according to reports in which he literally is on record apologizing and asking for leniency for the accident, yet Sheehy’s team put out a statement bizarrely blaming his accident it on an imaginary member of his SEAL team shooting him with friendly fire during combat.
Rather than simply owning up to the facts on paper, he and his supporters scream about “fake news” media as they hide behind using his history as a Navy SEAL member to insinuate that not only did the park ranger lie, but so did the hospital staff who treated his wound.
Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyoming), a former chairman of the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs, applauds for Tim Sheehy, the Republican candidate for U.S. Senate, in Billings, Montana, on October 29, 2024. Photo: Tim Sheehy for Montana
While most politicians can be accused of telling white lies or exaggerating truths, Sheehy is on another level of not just a being a habitual, but pathological liar.
“In pseudologia fantastica, a pathological form of lying, the patient lies not to avoid painful consequences but rather to obtain internal reward or gratification,” wrote psychotherapist Mark L. Ruffalo in his 2021 Psychology Today piece, “Lying and Pseudologia Fantastica.” “Often, the lies present the patient as a hero, champion, or victim. This reflects the patient’s unconscious attempt to garner the attention and admiration of the listener, serving to brighten the picture the patient paints of himself in his own mind.”
The irony of his fanciful tall tales and lies about how he was shot by friendly fire but heroically concealed it to protect his SEAL team, or how he valiantly rode his horse amongst the hostile Natives who would throw beer cans at you if they didn’t respect you, is that all he had to do was come clean and apologize for these instances, and maybe a lot of people would let bygones be bygones and respect him for manning up and admitting fault.
Instead, weeks later he offers up some lame excuse about how the quotes were taken “out of context” without of course providing or clarifying any context.
He banked on the hopes his lies would be swept under the rug while his supporters who trusted his word would forever ignorantly presume their savage and hostile Montana Indigenous neighbors throw beer cans at people they don’t like at alcohol-free family gatherings and parades.
Sheehy has fast became like another pathological liar candidate with an “R” behind his name who became renowned for his penchant for spreading horse manure in his short-sighted quest for power, George Santos.
In true double-down MAGA fashion, I don’t expect Sheehy to apologize to the Crow Tribe or Indigenous peoples of Montana anytime soon for his gross misrepresentation of us.
Like clockwork, I predict Sheehy will continue to blame the “liberal” media as his goons lash out with the identity fallacy implication that because he was a SEAL, one can never question his apparent infallibility or ergo, you disrespect all combat veterans.
Then eventually, and because he wants to avoid the abortion culture war issue, perhaps he will lamely shift to trying to bully the ultra minority of trans/Two Spirit Montanans to stir outrage in hopes stoking the fires of hate elsewhere to take the heat of himself.
Here is some free advice via one of those Northern Cheyenne Two Spirit/trans people he so despises (me) who also has an enrolled Crow daughter: Don’t bear false witness against your neighbor, and maybe we wouldn’t have to call you “Snake Tongue Sheehy.”
Adria L. Jawort, Northern Cheyenne, is the Director of Indigenous Transilience non-profit.
This story originally appeared on Daily Montanan on October 16, 2024. It is published under a Creative Commons license (CC BY-ND 4.0).
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