The Real Issue On Wendy Davis

I haven't had much to say about the controversy surrounding Wendy Davis, the Democrat candidate for governor of Texas, Wendy Davis. But then it occurred to me that what's going on here reveals something about the state of our politics.

It's been revealed that she's been, well, less than honest about her background.

Ms. Davis first came to prominence when as a state senator she performed a one-woman filibuster against the new Texas abortion law. She became an absolute darling of the Left, not just for opposing any limits on abortion on demand (about which more later) but for her supposed biography, a gutsy single teenage mom living in a trailer who earned her way to Harvard, a law degree and political office.

Except it was all, as the Dallas Morning News revealed, 'blurred'. Or as I might less genteelly phrase it, sheer horse manure.

Wendy was actually 21, not 19 as she claimed when she got a divorce from husband #1 and moved back into her parent’s trailer park home, where she lived only a few months before finding an apartment of her own for herself and her daughter.

So we go from a feisty teenaged mom who fought her way out of a trailer park on her own to an adult who moved back in with mom and dad for a few months before moving on. Not only that, but Wendy testified under oath, in a federal lawsuit regarding redistricting, that she was 19 when she got divorced. That's called perjury, and it reveals a certain lighthearted regard for truth in someone sworn to uphold the law..which is definitely not a good thing.

Jeff Davis, Wendy’s second husband, was a lawyer 13 years older than her when they married soon after she moved out of her parent's trailer. In fact, he was a friend of her father's and she got Dad to make the pitch to him and dangle Wendy in front of him. He paid her way through two years of Texas Christian University and then through Harvard Law while Jeff Davis became a single parent, caring for both her daughter by her first husband and a second daughter they had shortly after they were married while she was at Harvard.Davis took out hefty loans in his own name and even cashed out his 401(K) to pay her way through school...after which Wendy divorced him, literally the day after Jeff Davis wrote his final check to pay off her student loan:

Jeff Davis said that was right around the time the final payment on their Harvard Law School loan was due. “It was ironic,” he said. “I made the last payment, and it was the next day she left.

In his initial divorce filing, Jeff Davis citied adultery on her part, but the final court decree smoothed things over and made no mention of any infidelity, granting the divorce “on the ground of insupportability.” Once she and Davis were divorced, Ms. Davis handed over full custody of their daughter to her now ex-husband,(the daughter from her earlier marriage was 21 by then) stating that he was a “nurturing father” and that it was just “not a good time” for her.

In fairness, Wendy Davis claims she helped pay for her college and law school, although her website (at least the last time I looked) claims “With the help of academic scholarships and student loans, Wendy not only became the first person in her family to earn a bachelor’s degree but graduated first in her class and was accepted to Harvard Law School.”

No mention there of Jeff Davis, who won't comment now and says he has been told not to talk to reporters any more.

With kids involved,that's understandable.

After she graduated from Harvard in 1993, Wendy Davis started her own law practice. Although she says, “I was a vibrant part of contributing to our family finances from the time I graduated to the time we separated in 2003”, most of her income came from work she was given by her husband at the title company he founded.

When the company was sold as part of the divorce, she took him for half of it, even though it was Jeff Davis who funded and financed the company.

So what is all this leading up to?

Most politicians lie. That's why so many of them have practiced as liars, er, lawyers. And goodness knows,given who's in the Oval Office these days, that bar has been lowered quite a bit.

But what bothers me here is not a little image enhancing, but the way that image enhancing fits against the truth. And especially, what that truth shows.

Wendy Davis is being sold as a model of the New Woman, a gutsy little self-achiever who got where she is through her own hard work and perseverance, a compassionate progressive who cares about people.

Actually, it pretty much seems like she got where she got to through an older man's money and influence. And once she'd milked that, she dumped him, leaving the baggage of her daughter behind for some one else to take care of while she moved on to better, more exciting endeavors, doesn't it?

Frankly, if she was just campaigning on issues and hadn't made the bio such a big part of her story that would have been something else. As it is, it looks like what we have here is another Hillary Clinton-style serial prevaricator.

And to be honest, her claim to fame, that filibuster against the very moderate Texas Abortion law fits into the same pattern

The law didn't criminalize abortion. All it did,after a couple of Dr. Gosnell style horror stories shocked Texans throughout the state was to mandate the abortion doctors meet certain minimum standards and have practicing privileges at a hospital, essentially a screening device to try and guard against the Dr. Gosnells and their chambers of horror.. It also limited abortion resulting from consensual sex that did not endanger the life of the mother to 20 weeks....5 months.

At 5 months, an infant has a totally developed nervous system and is fully capable of feeling pain when his or her skull is punctured, the brains are vacuumed out and what's left is dragged out of the womb by forceps. What Ms. Davis was filibustering for  was not only a continuation of that practice but for the right to abort infants in that fashion at any point during pregnancy for any reason. And for a lot less accountability for the doctors and clinics that perform them.

So much for being the children's advocate she claims to be.

And compassion? Aside from her tender regard for the unborn,  for someone who, in ProgSpeak frequently talks about the greed of the rich and how  everybody needs to contribute their fair share and show empathy for the less fortunate, she's a mite challenged when it comes to charitable giving herself.

Another example of her compassion for others was this gem, accusing her opponent, Attorney General Greg Abbot of being behind her unraveling narrative:

“I am proud of where I came from and I am proud of what I’ve been able to achieve through hard work and perseverance. And I guarantee you that anyone who tries to say otherwise hasn’t walked a day in my shoes.”

Actually, Greg Abbot hasn't been able to do much walking in anyone's shoes for some time...as Ms. Davis knows full well:



Now, this is a Texas election, and I am not a Texan. But if I were, this is not the sort of person I'd want held up to my daughters as a role model, let alone who I'd want running my state, especially when things are going quite well without her.

The ancient Greeks said it quite well...'Character is destiny'.

And that's the real issue.

UPDATE: A fairly high profile group of Davis supporters was caught on video mocking AG Greg Abbot's use of a wheelchair:



Battleground Texas, a nationally funded Democrat organization with direct funding from President Obama's Organizing for America and the DNC is the group the Davis supporters caught making the comments belong to.They naturally denied the video was real. Of course, they always say that about James O'Keefe and Project Veritas, don't they, and they're always shown up as liars.

Davis,of course, issued a statement condemning the language used in the video, although her campaign slogan,“Stand With Wendy” is pretty much a direct slur at Abbott. I liked the reply he made in an interview with Megyn Kelly:

Denigrating the disabled is unworthy of Texas….What Texans really look at is the depth of character. There’s a reason why I have been elected statewide in Texas five different times. That’s because Texans know I have the quality and depth of character to represent their families and their values.

When Kelly pressed Abbott about allegations that Davis’s entire “Stand With Wendy” campaign is misleading the people of Texas, he didn't unload on her,but merely said that it is up to voters to make that judgement.

I think that was exactly the right tone to take. As for Wendy Davis? Well, I think you know what I think.