Gaffetastic! Wendy Davis: My Wheelchair-bound Opponent 'Hasn’t Walked a Day In My Shoes'

You were saying? MT @WendyDavisTexas: @GregAbbott_TX‘s completely out of touch with the struggles that I faced pic.twitter.com/r5f04bp9Ok

— Cameron Gray (@Cameron_Gray) January 21, 2014

“Since Abbott doesn’t walk at all, it’s a rather infelicitous figure of speech, don’t you think?,” Neo-Neocon asks. Wendy-Davis, the far left “Abortion Barbie” candidate for governor of Texas, was quoted as saying:

“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.”

As Orrin Judd writes, “If you’re going to gaffe, go all in baby!”

Greg Abbott was elected attorney general in 2002. But his political trek began decades earlier – in agony.

At age 26, Abbott was partially paralyzed in a freak accident and bedridden for a month. His dream to practice law withered. But he tilled new ambitions, reading about politics during his recovery and internalizing a credo from his mother: Never say I can’t.

“That is one of the more guiding principals that got me through,” said Abbott, now 52. “Just because this happened doesn’t mean I can’t do whatever it is I wanted to do. It picked me up off of the hospital bed and got me going.”

The accident – an oak tree fell and struck his back as he jogged by – kept him hospitalized and in rehabilitation for more than three months. The recovery was often excruciating. He has used a wheelchair ever since.

It also hardened his resolve and propelled him on a path toward politics. He passed the bar exam a year after the accident, excelled as a Houston lawyer and eventually was elected a judge. Abbott, a Republican, has won two terms as attorney general and is running again against retired Houston lawyer Barbara Ann Radnofsky, a Democrat.

He has used his tenure to combat child predators and human trafficking and to chime in on highly charged topics from climate change to health care.

Meanwhile Davis is busy going where many Democrats, from Betty Friedan to Al Gore to John Kerry to Barack Obama have gone before — wildly inventing and reinventing wide swatches of her back story. At Commentary, Jonathan S. Tobin explains “Why a Feminist Heroine Revised Her Bio:”

Democrats could scarcely believe their luck when they learned Davis was not only a photogenic blonde whose pink sneakers became an icon for abortion-rights supporters but also had a biography that sounded like political gold. Thanks to the values of the liberal media, soon the nation learned that she was a former single teenaged mother who, by dint of old-fashioned guts, smarts and gumption, had worked her way through college and then through Harvard Law School before turning to politics. With that kind of background and the notoriety the filibuster gave her, it’s little wonder that she became a darling of national liberal political donors such as Emily’s List and the almost certain Democratic nominee in the 2014 governor’s race.

But it turns out the true account of her life doesn’t exactly match up to the story she’s been selling while raising money for her campaign. As the Dallas Morning News reported in a story published over the weekend, “facts have been blurred” in order to make her seem more sympathetic. Davis conveniently omitted some details that are germane to her tale of poverty and valorous self-sufficiency. According to the Morning News:

In an extensive interview last week, Davis acknowledged some chronological errors and incomplete details in what she and her aides have said about her life.

“My language should be tighter,” she said. “I’m learning about using broader, looser language. I need to be more focused on the detail.”

That sounds like typical backtracking from a politician caught fibbing. If it doesn’t deflate her boomlet, it was exactly what Democrats, who were hoping that Davis could take advantage of feminist fervor and changing demographics to give Texas Republicans a fight, didn’t want to hear.

Wild dissembling and airbrushing your bio was once called, in more innocent times, lying. Of course, as Jim Treacher writes, “When a Democrat lies, it’s never an actual lie.” Read the whole thing; marvel at the screen captures of Davis media defenders — but no one should surprised — this is the MSM, and this is what they do. Right, Dan and Matt?

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And speaking of which, this is probably a good time to mention Roger L. Simon’s new post: “The Duranty Prize Is Back—with an Addition:  …And the Rather Award Goes to…”