Even The Progressive Dallas Morning News Isn't Having Wendy Davis' Attempt to Have It Both Ways

It's obvious and true, so I'm shocked that the Dallas Morning News wrote it.

At Instapundit:

Wendy Davis (and her zealous Sisterhood of Solidarity) now argues that if a man had just told a series of Gigantic Lies to advance his political career, well, the "Old Boys' Club wouldn't have had anything to say about that!!! Serious You Guys!"

Obviously that's not a real quote. (By the way, it would be useful to have a form of punctuation to indicate "parody quote." I just ran into this problem in the comments on the Sexual Thunderdome Thread. There are things I put in quotes which I intend to be taken as parody, and I think I've signaled that sufficiently, that I'm I'm parodying a position, not accurately reporting it, but it's turns out to not have been clearly signaled. Which leads to confusion and arguments about bad faith.)

But basically that's what she's saying.

A quote from a one-time Fort Worth City Council colleague of Davis’ who alleges a gender-driven double standard. Excerpt from the column, quoting former FW City Council member Becky Haskin:

“If this involved a man running for office, none of this would ever come up,” she said.

“It’s so sad. Every time I ran, somebody said I needed to be home with my kids. Nobody ever talks about men being responsible parents.”

That would be a powerful argument if it were material, or true. Just because it’s a woman charging a double standard in this matter doesn’t make it so.

The image that the Davis people are putting out was exemplified by her willingness to play along with the Today show’s Maria Shriver under the theme #DoingItAll. Shriver went to Fort Worth and did a fawning piece on Davis’ life and career as an example of a woman who worked hard and overcame odds. . . .

If a man campaigned on something like “family values” or a similar theme, and if he had two failed marriages in his past, and if he left two small kids with a spouse for an extended time a couple thousand miles away, and if he dumped that spouse later on, he would run into the same buzzsaw that Davis hit this week.

The public sees when a candidate is trying to have it both ways. And that has nothing to do with a man-woman double standard.

She was running on the platform of #DoingItAll. She'd raised herself by her own bootstraps; she'd raised her kids by her own hand. All while becoming a Harvard lawyer.

Well, only one of those things is true. Becoming a Harvard lawyer is not terribly impressive; many people manage to do so, especially lawyers who attend Harvard.

What made her story special (in her own telling) was that she had had the scrap to pay her own way, and that she had done all this while raising little children.

But she did not do these things. She married (after her first divorce from a blue-collar worker) a wealthy lawyer 13 years her senior who paid her way through Harvard and took care of the kids (including the one from her first marriage) and who she then promptly tossed away like last week's news when her student loans were paid off.

Oh, and she let him have full custody of the kids, too.

Does Wendy Davis really think it is that impressive that a woman should graduate from Harvard Law, alone, without those other distinguishing elements, which turned out to be lies?

Apparently she does.

This is the strange thing about feminism, sometimes. They wish to suggest that women are capable of the extraordinary. But then, to prove that women can achieve the extraordinary, they put forth examples of women achieving the merely ordinary, and they say it's extraordinary, Because a Girl Did It.

That's not quite compatible with the idea that women can #DoItAll, is it?

Incidentally... Does anyone suspect Wendy Davis used her "I'm a single mom raising a bunch of kids all by myself" schtick to help get into Harvard, and then promptly dumped the single status and the kids when she was actually in Cambridge?

Oh, And... Apparently Wendy Davis' top supporters think it's pretty funny that her opponent, Greg Abbot, is a paraplegic. One supporter -- a lawyer, of course -- even laughs about the contrast of the slogan "Stand with Wendy," and stupid ol' cripple Greg Abbot there in his stupid wheelchair.

posted by Ace at 05:21 PM

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