Appearing on FNC's Hannity Wednesday night, conservative author and columnist Ann Coulter zinged the news media and the Democratic Party for being "so smitten" with Texas liberal Wendy Davis "because she's going to stand up for killing babies. Oh, that's great, that's really speaking truth to power."
Now, Coulter said, even Davis has realized that position "isn't so popular in Texas as it is in, you know, the media, news rooms across America," which explains why the candidate for governor told the Dallas Morning News on Tuesday she would now, given the right conditions, support a ban on abortions after 20 weeks.
Except in cases of severe fetal abnormality or a grave health risk to the mother, Davis told the newspaper's editorial board: “I would line up with most people in Texas who would prefer that that’s not something that happens outside of those two arenas....My concern, even in the way the 20-week ban was written in this particular bill, was that it didn’t give enough deference between a woman and her doctor making this difficult decision, and instead tried to legislatively define what it was.”
Apart from a single story on CBS This Morning on January 29, the broadcast networks that lionized Davis after her filibuster last June (see here, here and here) have been silent about the problems that have dogged her campaign for governor. The last story about Davis on NBC was on January 15, when "special anchor" Maria Shriver narrated what amounted to an infomercial for Davis's campaign:
MARIA SHRIVER (NBC's Today, January 15): Her story was forged a long way from the Austin state capital. Davis grew up poor and at the age of eighteen found herself pregnant and married. By nineteen, she was getting divorced and living in a mobile home park....Her early struggle she says have informed everything in both her political and her personal life....It has been a long, hard road for Wendy Davis to have her voice heard....Her story is certainly an example of what a strong education can offer women and men everywhere.
On last night's Hannity, Coulter punctured the media mythology around Davis and suggested the exaggerations about her struggles with poverty were akin to a male politician lying about his war record. The transcript follows the video:
Host SEAN HANNITY: You've been following Wendy Davis. She's, like, the new rock star of the Democratic Party and they love her down in Texas, we're told. Dallas Morning News has a piece, that just came out, that she would have supported a new ban on abortion after 20 weeks if the law adequately deferred to the women and her doctor. Now, you have been following her conflicting positions and her flipping and flopping and flailing -- is that the same Wendy Davis involved in the filibuster, is that the same position she had?
ANN COULTER: I don't know what that even means, 'defer to the woman and her doctor after 20 weeks.' I mean, that's just, you know, a loophole you can drive a truck through. But, I mean, it reminds me, it is just -- it is such an appalling thing about the Democratic Party that they're so smitten with a woman because she's going to stand up for killing babies. Oh, that's great, that's really speaking truth to power. I mean, she's figured out that isn't so popular in Texas as it is in, you know, the media, news rooms across America -- and in the Oval Office, I might add.
One thing I mentioned about Wendy Davis -- all these glorious pieces and making up for how she lied about going from being a single mother in a trailer park to Harvard Law School -- and that is, because I think some conservatives may be making some errors here. Nobody is complaining about what kind of mother she was. We don't care what kind of mother she is. She lied about having this enormous hardship and going from hardship of single mother, raising my kids, supporting a family, and -- wow! -- to Harvard Law School -- when in fact we now know she got a sugar daddy and she was supported -- who paid for her law school, who took care of the kids. I don't care that the husband took care of the kids.
The point is, she has a very low hardship that she was lying about. It's about -- it's like a politician claiming he won a Bronze Star in Vietnam, and then we found out he didn't. She was lying about the level of difficulty of getting from where she was to Harvard Law School. It is a lot easier when you have somebody paying for your law school tuition and raising your kids, but I don't care that she did it that way.
