The Culture of Fear_ Why Americans Are Afraid of the Wrong Things - Barry Glassner [55]
On “CBS This Morning” Hillary appeared for a full hour, but it wasn’t until three-quarters of the way through that the host, Harry Smith, realized he hadn’t asked about her book. He too framed his question in terms of Big Government. “Let’s talk about those disadvantaged children for a couple of seconds, because we live in an age now where there’s these trends to take government out of a lot of different kinds of businesses,” said Smith. “Distill your philosophy for me, for a second, about what government role you think should be played in the lives of disadvantaged children.”87
A second indeed. With a commercial break looming Hillary had just enough time to raise what should have been a focal point for the entire hour’s discussion. “Government has become the whipping boy, and it takes the rest of us off the hook. More families will be affected by the downsizing of American corporations that is going on right now and the insecurity that feeds in families than any government programs. So I think that we need to say, ‘Each one of us has a responsibility,”’ she asserted.88
In the final portion of the program, after the commercials, the hosts never returned to those topics.
4
MONSTER MOMS
On the Art of Misdirection
Another frightening thing about America’s children: they have children of their own. Or so politicians and the media would have us believe.
The most talked about pregnant person in the world in early 1996 was a ten-year-old runaway. “With heavy makeup framing her exotic almond-shaped eyes and her long, dark hair piled high, Cindy Garcia looked at least 14,” began an Associated Press story. “It wasn’t until two weeks ago that the shocking truth came out. Cindy-8 ½ months pregnant—had innocently handed welfare workers her birth certificate to qualify for food stamps and child support. Cindy, her belly bulging, was only 10.”1
Throughout a four-day period during which the Texas police hunted for her the media ran stories about how, as Britain’s Daily Telegraph put it, “police and doctors are in a race against time,” knowing that “with a 10-year-old body, she is going to require a Caesarean section and a lot of medical attention.” Talk radio show hosts had a field day with the story as listeners and legislators discoursed on how sick our society has become.2
Only grudgingly did the news media eventually take note of the fact, revealed after the girl’s capture, that she was actually fourteen and had said as much from the start. Never mind that neighbors had told reporters that Cindy was a pregnant teenager, or that social workers said her reading and math skills were those of a ninth or tenth grader. In the story’s brief heyday reporters casually dismissed these observations. “The truth is, she’s a 4th-grade dropout. She hasn’t been to school for more than a year,” the Associated Press had avowed.3
As it turns out the girl’s name wasn’t even Cindy Garcia, it was Adella Quintana. Her mother, Francesca Quintana, had gotten a phony birth certificate for her daughter when she moved from Mexico to Houston to enroll the girl in American schools.4
Now You See It, Now You Don’t
The real story here is not about “babies having babies,” as commentators put it, but the plight of a mother and her teenage daughter who, like millions of families before them, fled their homeland for what they hoped would be a better life in the United States only to experience a sea of new troubles. In the latter part of the twentieth century, however,