I’m having mine chocolate-flavored, with a dash of whipped cream and mini-peanut-butter cups and toasted almonds sprinkled over, watching the Wendy Davis meltdown, high atop my perch in suburban San Antonio.
Yes ma’am, the spectacle of a relatively unknown local state senator, suddenly elevated to national media attention and anointed the great feminist hope of out-of-state Dems everywhere, suddenly melting down … it is delicious. I ought not to feel this degree of vicious satisfaction … but I do. Heretofore, Ms. Davis only annoyed me for her filibuster opposing tighter regulation of abortion and the three-ring circus which ensued in the Capitol; Honestly, is insisting that abortions must take place before 20 weeks of a pregnancy have passed, and that the facility in which they are performed be at least as hygienic as your average Lasik surgery clinic somehow rise to the status of Teh Great War on Wymens? Really!? She wasn’t representing a district anywhere near mine, and lord knows I have heard tales of state senators and representatives who were notorious for shenanigans even more embarrassing. She, in other words, was not my representative and not my problem.
So I paid very little attention to her, other than to note that she had that sort of slim, tanned and polished look which only can be achieved by relentless dieting, working out, regular beauty-parlor appointments and a lavish expense account at Neiman-Marcus; the very epitome of a modern major feminist. Of course, she would be the latest liberal flavor-fave, especially since her story of working up from being a single teenage mother, living in a trailer … and yet managing to pull herself up by her own efforts and graduate Harvard Law. Well, as Bertie Wooster would say, huzzah for all that! What better liberal candidate for governor of the state of Texas could there be? Although, as my daughter pointed out, if being a relatively impoverished, self-educated and hardworking single mother are the criteria for higher political office these days, I might be at least as well qualified as Ms. Davis.
I have not a shred of a doubt that Ms. Davis has pulled in out of state donations by the bucket-full and I also have no shred of a doubt that she will move on to a profitable perch in the national Democratic party organization, or maybe to their propaganda arm, otherwise known as the national media. Where else can someone so essentially unself-aware be assured of a comfortable living after having mucked up a political future at the state level? Thanks to that devastating report in the Dallas Morning News, and her own ill-considered reaction to it, Ms. Davis likely has sunk herself with Texas voters three different ways. To male voters, she looks like the vindictive and social-climbing ex-wife from hell, to women voters, she comes off as a manipulative, gold-digging mean girl, and to all Texas voters, she appears as if she is more wedded to outside-Texas interests. And to whimper about having her personal and family life put under a hostile microscope, and have media outlets like NPR whine on her behalf, after what was said about Sarah Palin’s personal and family life? In this cruel world, that’s called turn-about being fair play. Hence the extra scoop of schadenfreude.
(cross-posted at www.ncobrief.com)
Penny says – bzzzzt! – Edited by Sgt. Mom
Sorry Penny, just went over the line. You know what they say about assumptions. If you can’t say anything nice, then you must be Penny.
Penn, when you go out of your way to avoid the presented argument so that you can insult a lady, you lack chivalry. And sense.
Read this yesterday (from the Dallas paper):
“Wendy is tremendously ambitious,” he said, speaking only on condition of anonymity in order to give what he called an honest assessment. “She’s not going to let family or raising children or anything else get in her way.”
Told me all I needed to know about: 1)her political party; 2)her pro-abortion stance.
Schadenfreude, yes, but bitter sweet. Wendy has not merely caused, will not merely cause lots of grief. She hurts, too.
Believing that abortion doctors should have admitting privileges at hospitals, that doors to rooms in which abortons take place should be wide enough to accommodate a stretcher – yeah, that bill really was designed by misognynists. (That’s before we get to your excellent point that someone can be pro-choice while accepting certain time limits.)
Wendy Davis is the face feminists put forward.
One president’s wife saw making cookies as demeaning but quite willingly trashed women that caught that husband’s eye and received his sometimes rough passes. She had attached herself to a rising political star in law school and stayed attached. Another trained herself well, worked, then decided she wanted to specialize and develop her skills. At a job using those skills, she apparently fell in love with a man, one she saw as strong but needing seasoning; she bore twins she raised with affection & humor. Which path do we want for our daughters? Leech or partner? Which is like Wendy Davis? And which do feminists see as role model?
That is the whole thing in a nutshell. To be aggrieved, to be narcisstic, to be whiny – that is to be feminist. That is not to be a frontierswoman nor a woman feeding her children on a windswept farm in the depression or women who truly, at odd jobs and in meager circumstances, worked their way through school. Nor is it to be a competent secretary of state.
It isn’t women, certainly not strong or independent women that are feared, but rather rapacious, angry, narcissistic ones. Women don’t need to be defined by having babies – but Davis’s cavalier attitude toward them – that it just isn’t the right time to have or to raise them – betrays an extraordinary self-centeredness we have seen in others feminists point to as models.
Aggrieved feminism is critical of strong women (look at its attitude toward Sarah Palin) and attracts dependent and narcissistic ones. It isn’t surprising that professional feminists are so often in unequal marriages, leveraging money, power or status. Such a couple is not in a partnership but rather a relationship with an implicit contract. Each has obvious, if not always stated, duties. Her husband, accepting the role of single parent, seems to have manned up to both the financial and the daily responsibilities of their relationhip. But leaving her child from her first marriage with him, filing papers the day he finishes paying for law school – these indicate one didn’t accept implicit terms – any more than she accepts the implicit duties of truthfully description, accepting the hard knocks of a campaign, or of compassion and respect for others.
Let’s not jinx ourselves.
Abortion Barbie may somehow claw her way back.
I hope the GOP can keep the pressure on the gold-digger, and make an affirmative case for their man, and bring this thing home.
Sgt. Mom, yeah I live in the Houston-Sugar Land area, didn’t pay attention to this person until she cost the tax payers of Texas over a Million dollars because of her filibuster over a very reasonable law. And now we find out just how self-centered she really is – abandoning her child by going 2000 miles away to school – UT law school not good enough or was she not admitted except to a school bragging about its disadvantaged enrollee?
“To male voters, she looks like the vindictive and social-climbing ex-wife from hell,”
Having two ex-wives, neither of which ever approached her status, I can sense a goose walking over my grave when I see her.
Lots of hatred at Palin in the DMN today .
How dare she keep her Downs baby ? Forgive her daughter a dumb relationship? Work alongside her husband at his fishing business? Work her way through college without ever going to Harvard Law School ?
She paid a pretty heavy price for McCain’s dumb campaign although she was never going to get a lot of support from the Democrats in Alaska once she became a national figure. She took on the Murchowski machine but they seem to have the power to put the daughter in the Senate. I still like her style even if I am not a social con.
Then there were 3 levels of trials charging “defamation” over typical campaign criticism.
“Then there were 3 levels of trials charging “defamation””
Does Harvard Law teach stuff about public figures and libel laws ?
Not a strong sign of her intelligence.
The Austin ‘Statesman” has an interesting column about being beat to the punch by DMN:
http://www.statesman.com/weblogs/first-reading/2014/jan/21/wendy-davis-bio-how-i-didnt-get-story/
Strange to see reporters suddenly doing their jobs…
“Strange to see reporters suddenly doing their jobs…”
Yeah, it is – strange and … it’s almost as if they suddenly realized their credibility was swirling around and around the drain.
My own intuition about Ms. Davis is that very likely the locals in her district and neighborhoods knew exactly what her personal history was. Very likely, those Texas political wonks had a pretty fair notion, too. It was all those who weren’t in her district, neighborhood and outside Texas who hadn’t a clue. And nominating her as the Fearless Champion of the Struggling Womyn Everywhere in retrospect now seems like a very bad idea. The out of state liberals got used. By her. Just like her two ex-husbands got used.
Wendy Davis, AKA The “Abortion Barbie,” strikes me as being great deal like ex-Senator Kay Bailey Hutcheson, who was pure “alpha female,” only a lot nastier, short sighted and less intelligent.
Trent, I bet if you look at her in 20 years, she’ll look even a lot more like Kay…..
KBH had 30+ years in the political arena to get to her peak form.
The problem with democracy is well illustrated here. The people who want power the most are the ones who will do what it takes to gain power. They end up running the place because they want it more than normal people.
A real problem. You should just appoint me king.
PenGun,
Done!
Wait, exactly which 1000 square meters of BC is your kingdom? I forget.
When the Austin City Council banned books in the late 1980s, only the alternative weekly, the Dallas, and the Houston papers covered it. The “American-Statesman” (at least two lies in the that phrase) actively refused to cover the banning. The only surprise re: Davis is a brief admission of error.
“A real problem. You should just appoint me king.”
I have nothing against a constitutional monarchy when the royalty are not subsidized by taxes. An insane monarch like Ludwig or several of the Charleses can be salutatory reminder of the value of term limits.
}}} abandoning her child by going 2000 miles away to school – UT law school not good enough or was she not admitted except to a school bragging about its disadvantaged enrollee?
I would not overtly criticize this, per se — going to Harvard, Princeton, Stanford, Yale, CalTech — these are not things you turn down if that option is available. But to leave behind your kids is pretty bad, esp. in those early, developing years. Even if, while at Harvard, you can’t give them the full time you’d want to, the notion of not being NEAR your kids for that long a time is pretty self-absorbed.