A CAUTIONARY NOTE – AT 12:06 P.M. ET:  This story struck me as so typical of some of the political figures we're seeing today, although we've always had a dose of it in our history.  No politician was more heralded when she made her first political splash than Wendy Davis.

She became a feminist heroine when she stood on the floor of the Texas legislature, in sneakers, and filibustered an anti-abortion measure.  Beautiful, engaging, an up-from-poverty graduate of the Harvard Law School, she started receiving huge amounts in campaign contributions, most from eager supporters outside Texas, who saw her as the next governor, maybe president, maybe queen, maybe empress of the United States. 

But Wendy turned out to be a disappointment – poorly prepared, a bit deceptive about that up-from-poverty story, rather behind-the-times in her abortion stances, and one of the worst candidates for governor of Texas ever.  Now we find that Wendy was really just an old-style vote hustler, who didn't even tell the truth about where she stood.  A lesson to us all about politics.  From the Washington Examiner: 

And it didn’t even work.

Former Texas gubernatorial candidate Wendy Davis, in her first interview after losing by 20 points to governor-elect Greg Abbott, admitted she only claimed to support an open-carry gun law in order to win votes.

“There is one thing that I would do differently in that campaign, and it relates to the position that I took on open-carry,” Davis told the San Antonio Express-News on Monday. “I made a quick decision on that with a very short conversation with my team and it wasn't really in keeping with what I think is the correct position on that issue.”

Davis added that she does support “people’s right to own and to bear arms in appropriate situations,” but fears that open carry would be used “to intimidate and cause fear.”

Is that what she thinks of Texans?

The term “open-carry” refers to laws that allow gun-owners to carry their weapons in full view of the public. Typically (although not always) such laws still require those who want to carry concealed weapons to apply for a permit.

During her gubernatorial campaign, Davis said she supported an expansion of gun rights in Texas that included open-carry.

Davis now says that she has “always been true to my core beliefs.” Except, of course, when she wasn't.

COMMENT:  Lesson:  Journalists shouldn't make heroes or heroines out of people they really don't know.  Get the facts first.  Examine the person.  Check that person's claims.  We're going into a presidential election year, when we'll need first-class reporting.  We'll get some.  We'll get the other kind as well.

December 31, 2014