Texas-based superhero Wendy Davis is having a moment in the national spotlight now, thanks to her 12-hour filibuster of Texas’ abortion bill. She’s so beloved that people even want to wear her sweet filibustering shoes, sort of the way kids put on Batman masks and chase their recidivist family pets around the living room. Wendy Davis is pretty popular with just about everyone except numerically disinclined supervillain Rick Perry.
During a Sunday appearance on CBS’s Face the Nation, Davis availed herself of a perfect opportunity to remind the entire country just how much of asshole Rick Perry is. Perry and his Republican cohorts aren’t just buffoons who make strange ninja videos during political campaigns — they’re elected officials with real political power actively trying to curtail the reproductive rights of women in Texas.
Davis explained to Face the Nation host Bob Schieffer,
I think really what’s happening here, Bob, is politicians are using this issue to boost their own political aspirations, their own political ambitions.
Gov. Perry and Lt. Gov. Dewhurst are willing to … put women in harm’s way in order to step up on the political ladder.
This raises an important question: just how much further “up the ladder” Perry could ascend? After his 2012 trainwreck of a presidential campaign, only a GOP bent on immolating itself once and for all would nominate him. Maybe Perry’s angling for a Senate seat, or maybe he bought a secret island in the Caribbean that he’ll make himself president of when he’s done with Texas (on Perry Island, the only music will be loud and the only mode of transportation will be go-kart).
Whatever the political aspirations of America’s most efficient gif machine, Davis cautioned that Texas Republicans won’t make the same sloppy mistakes when next they try to push their abortion bill through:
They mismanaged the clock terribly last time, and they also ran roughshod over a lot of our senate rules and traditions to try to ram this bill through. And they’ll probably be a bit smarter about how they try to move this bill in this next session starting on Monday. But what they now have to confront is that the eyes of Texas, the eyes of the country are watching.
Davis may not have stopped Texas Republicans from pushing their abortion agenda, but her dramatic filibuster did ensure that everyone is paying much closer attention to Rick Perry’s fever dreams of uterine tyranny.
[Politico]
Image via Getty, Image via Erich Schiezel
