Both of you have stretched your own credibility and more than fulfilled your "liberated American woman" roles. We've sat by, patiently tolerating your antics because of the peculiar American "don't-be-judgmental" ailment. We've tolerated Beth's tormented, endless accusatory interviews on any TV network that would bite--"if it were your daughter, wouldn't you do the same?" an acquaintance asked recently. Well, yes. Up to a point.
Beth, here's my message to you: When you sent your daughter off on a "rite of passage" trip apparently de rigeuer in your Alabama social caste, you surely weren't so naive to believe she wouldn't be experimenting with sex, alcohol, and drugs on a Caribbean island with nothing more to commend it than being one continuous beach with palm trees, sun, and lots of discos and bars--where their proprietors legally dispense their wares to youngsters like yours, under the aegis of very liberal Dutch laws and cultural mores peculiar to Holland (legal prostitution, drugs, euthanasia, homosexual marriage, etc.). You surely also knew then, as you know now, that travel anywhere--foreign or abroad--involves dangers and real risks. Sure, you had every right to try and locate your tragically disappeared daughter.
But after three months, your influence produced zero results. And in your irrational zeal in trying to trash Aruba, you've managed to repackage me and others who travel abroad as the 1960s "Ugly American," an image many of us spent years trying to live down--not only on Aruba, but around the world wherever cable network signals are received. You've done it almost single-handed with your shrillness, your babbling, your bible-thumping, and your ill-considered accusatory comparisons ("In America, we do it this way . . . "), your aggressive impositions on innocent bystanders--all the antics you've been plying, most of which I suspect your allies, the TV media, have suggested to you in order to create another story to show to a wide American audience who are evidently addictive voyeurs and have handed record-breaking viewer ratings to FOX and MSNBC--all the while Rome burns.
Enough, Beth Twitty-Holloway. Go home. Allow the Arubans to finish their investigations. If you really believe they are trying to exonerate guilty parties related to your daughter's disappearance, then certainly, you should take up the cause, but in the appropriate channels. Which doesn't include recording your hysteria in the international entertainment media. If it gives you succor, then by all means continue to grieve, hire detectives, write letters . . . whatever helps you endure your loss. But leave America and Aruba out of it! Show some dignity by ignoring Greta van Sustern and the other media scavengers. But spare us the task of having to try to explain your excessive behavior to foreigners. And finally, you could put your time to practical uses: Start organizing your notes that you'll use to market your forthcoming book. (You didn't think we were that naive, did you?).
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Then there's Cindy, the exploited California mom, understandably still grieving over the loss of her son, Casey, in Iraq. Yes, we understood Cindy at first, and even admired her that she was able to speak personally with President Bush several months ago. Many of us have continued to be patient as she morphed into a political spectacle, because we didn't want to be judgmental. "She has every right to speak out against the Bush foreign policy," the TV talking heads advised us at the beginning of her roadside Crawford vigil. Again, my acquaintance's taunting, "You wouldn't want to deny her the right to speak out?" Well, not exactly. But isn't there a limit?
But now, poor ol' Cindy's been pushed over the top and she's embarrassing the entire country, by repeating, parrot-like the lines fed to her by the long-haired, nose-ringed, sandal-shod grad students who gravitate to any anti-American cause, taking time off from their Leftist campus where their antics are daily routine. They have captured the attention of the ever-present media, anxious in their quest to derail the Administration; so now, the Left has ordained that Cindy's first congenial meeting with the president wasn't enough. So here we are today--she now believes that her son's death has amply equipped her as a foreign policy expert who can speak for me and thee. she's now mouthing the Left's mantras: "All war is bad. Invading Afghanistan was wrong; Osama bin Laden was the problem, not the people of Afghanistan. Iraq is wrong--they didn't do anything to us. We must bring our sons and daughters home immediately."
Oh puh-leeze! Is there no restriction on First Amendment rights? Can't we, the maligned, silent majority of citizens, be allowed to jerk her offstage with a long shepherd's hook, like they used to do to bad vaudeville acts of yore? Please have Karl Rove look into it! But in any event, Mr. Bush, do not yield to the pressures to allow this poor pawn into your presence again--to do so would sully your office and our military.
I've got a message for you, Cindy. You shoulda stayed home to care for your mom; she probably suffered her stroke out of embarrassment for your shameless antics. Has your penchant for the press and your need for more ego-stroking by the Left confused your priorities? Well, here's the bottom line, lady: Your son was not drafted. He volunteered to join the Army. He was of legal age. Reportedly, he was an intelligent, dedicated young man who was proud of his service in general, and his assignment to the war zone. You have a right to grieve, Cindy, but you have no right to dishonor all those wounded and KIA warriors by your thoughtless antics.
If you must extend your grieving, please do so in private--but don't attempt to impose your grief on us, or to turn it into a misguided political agenda. You have no right to do so.
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