If a Man Used the Word that Wendy Davis Used, Wendy Davis Would Probably Sue Him

That word is “gal.” Davis said it in the context of continuing to explain why she misled in the telling of her own origins story.

Davis told the crowd of supporters that this race isn’t about what happened in her life 30 years ago, it’s about what will happen to Texas families 30 years from now.

“Greg Abbott and his folks have a picked a fight with wrong Texas gal,” Davis said.

First, Abbott didn’t pick any fight here. The Dallas Morning News’ Wayne Slater interviewed Davis and her ex-husband and reported his findings. Those findings raised legitimate questions about whether Davis’ tales about her early hardships were entirely accurate, or embellished. Texans have seen a similar tale before, in late former Railroad Commissioner Lena Guerrero, who was caught embellishing her resume in the 1990s. To her credit, once she was caught, Guerrero admitted her guilt and resigned her office. Davis has not followed that example.

Slater has said that the Abbott campaign played no role whatsoever in his story, that they saw it when everyone else did — when the DMN published it. Davis has provided no evidence at all that what Slater says isn’t true, rendering her criticism of Abbott in this context irrelevant and dishonest. It’s also an attack on Slater’s integrity, which fits a pattern of Davis attacking media when it publishes things she does not like. Davis sued the Fort Worth Star-Telegram in the 1990s when it endorsed her opponent in her first foray into politics. Davis, an attorney by that point, ludicrously claimed that the paper’s endorsement infringed on her right to pursue public office and caused her mental and physical suffering. That lawsuit was not a spur of the moment decision — thin-skinned Wendy pursued it for years before it was finally thrown out with prejudice. In its decision tossing Davis’ ridiculous case out on its rear, the court wrote that it “cannot conclude a person of ordinary intelligence would perceive the (newspaper’s) statements as inflammatory.” Indeed. That wasn’t a lawsuit, it was a clown suit.

Second, I’m a fourth or fifth-generation Texan (I lost count and haven’t looked up the family tree in a few years). “Gal” isn’t a word in common usage in Texas among anyone younger than about 75, as Kevin Williamson notes and I concur. Wendy Davis is 50 and isn’t a native Texan. She was born in Rhode Island. There’s nothing wrong with that, we all come from somewhere and Texas is the state to which more Americans move every day than any other state. They’re not coming here to hear Wendy Davis try to sound like a bad imitation of Molly Ivins doing Hollywood’s idea of what Texans talk like. They’re mostly coming here because Texas leads the nation in job creation and has a low-tax, family and business friendly economic climate. Or they’re coming here to be free of the blue state policies that Wendy Davis would try to impose if she ever becomes governor.

“Gal” is a word that feminists have taken to deriding as paternalistic. You can bet that if Greg Abbott called Wendy Davis “gal” — which he wouldn’t do — Wendy Davis would spend months ripping him for it, and the media and the Democrat establishment would never ever let him hear the end of it.