The Political Biography of Wendy Davis

As this Christian Science Monitor article notes, Wendy is learning the hard lesson of fudging her biography. It's not like she reinvented herself, as so many politicians do, but she "blurred" the lines enough that Wayne Slater of the Dallas Morning News felt compelled to spell out the distinctions in a story he wrote on the gubernatorial candidate for 2014.

You see Davis got the jump on her prospective Republican opponent, Greg Abbot, raising more money for her prospective run than he did in December. This seems to have come as a bit of a jolt to Texas GOP fundraisers, and so they seek a way to curb all this appeal Wendy Davis has been garnering since her epic filibuster in the Texas state legislature last summer.

Slater categorically denies he was requested to write his story at the behest of the Abbott campaign. He felt he was compelled to tell it how he sees it, digging into Wendy's personal narrative and pulling out a few inconsistencies that are enough to doubt her story. Even he admits that what she has said is mostly true, but in thinly disguised sexist terms notes that there was a man there to support her and her children while she pursued her law degree at Harvard, essentially stripping her of the claim that she was a single mother working her way through college.

Not surprisingly, the conservative blogs have run with this, and there is even a "Real Wendy" web site and facebook page to enlighten Texas voters as to the impertinent Texas state legislator who dared to hold back a draconian anti-abortion bill that the Republicans claim most Texans wanted. This is the price of overnight fame. Just like the "liberal press" goes after Sarah Palin, Ted Cruz, Paul Rand and the other Tea Party darlings, we have the conservative blogosphere to set the record straight on up and coming liberals who might break the stranglehold the Tea Party apparently has on Texas politics.

It's bad enough the Tea Party backed GOP has gerrymandered the Texas voting districts (thanks largely to Greg Abbott) so that it is difficult for Democrats to win beyond their etch-a-sketch districts, now one has to run the gauntlet of politically paid newspapers to keep your good name.

The Dallas Morning News is owned by the Media News Group, a conservative news media group that owns newspapers throughout the country, including the Denver Post and Detroit News, and has been under fire for antitrust violations since 2006. So, it is not surprising that the DMN would run with a story like this when for the first time since Ann Richards, a Democrat has a real shot at being the governor of Texas.

Remember Ann?

Wendy Davis appears to be a real threat, hence she has to be taken down a peg, and nothing like a little bit of Rovian smear tactics to do the trick. After all, this is what brought the mighty Ann Richards down, who many considered a sure bet over her upstart challenger, George W. Bush, in 1994. But, now the GOP is dealing with an upstart challenger, so the shoe is on the other foot so to speak.

It seems Wendy is ready for the challenge, especially since Greg Abbott isn't exactly a household name. He fits the Tea Party profile to a tee, but his only claim to fame is having appointed Ted Cruz as state solicitor general. Wendy has already shot back at Slater's piece, and in an age where the Republicans have thoroughly disgraced themselves among women, going after her with too much vigor will only make them look even more like bullies.

The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire

Welcome to this month's reading group selection. David Von Drehle mentions The Melting Pot , a play by Israel Zangwill, that premiered on Broadway in 1908. At that time theater was accessible to a broad section of the public, not the exclusive domain it has become over the decades. Zangwill carried a hopeful message that America was a place where old hatreds and prejudices were pointless, and that in this new country immigrants would find a more open society. I suppose the reference was more an ironic one for Von Drehle, as he notes the racial and ethnic hatreds were on display everywhere, and at best Zangwill's play helped persons forget for a moment how deep these divides ran. Nevertheless, "the melting pot" made its way into the American lexicon, even if New York could best be describing as a boiling cauldron in the early twentieth century. Triangle: The Fire That Changed America takes a broad view of events that led up the notorious fire, not...

Dylan in America

Whoever it was in 1969 who named the very first Bob Dylan bootleg album “Great White Wonder” may have had a mischievous streak. There are any number of ways you can interpret the title — most boringly, the cover was blank, like the Beatles’ “White Album” — but I like to see a sly allusion to “Moby-Dick.” In the seven years since the release of his first commercial record, Dylan had become the white whale of 20th-century popular song, a wild, unconquerable and often baffling force of musical nature who drove fans and critics Ahab-mad in their efforts to spear him, lash him to the hull and render him merely comprehensible. --- Bruce Handy, NYTimes ____________________________________________ I figured we can start fresh with Bob Dylan. Couldn't resist this photo of him striking a Woody Guthrie pose. Looks like only yesterday. Here is a link to the comments building up to this reading group.

Team of Rivals Reading Group

''Team of Rivals" is also an America ''coming-of-age" saga. Lincoln, Seward, Chase et al. are sketched as being part of a ''restless generation," born when Founding Fathers occupied the White House and the Louisiana Purchase netted nearly 530 million new acres to be explored. The Western Expansion motto of this burgeoning generation, in fact, was cleverly captured in two lines of Stephen Vincent Benet's verse: ''The stream uncrossed, the promise still untried / The metal sleeping in the mountainside." None of the protagonists in ''Team of Rivals" hailed from the Deep South or Great Plains. _______________________________ From a review by Douglas Brinkley, 2005

Dispatches from Vilnius

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