by Laura Bush
Being the First Lady, I have to endure the trials that come with a life that is public. I have chosen this path, and I don’t apologize for it. But when it comes to one particular issue, I feel the need to correct the record. The issue in question is the fact that some in the press and the game of discourse around Washington have recently implied that my eating children necessarily implies an absence of love for those children, or worse yet, a purposeful desire to see them unhappy. Both of these implications are patently false.
My choice to eat children is a personal decision, one that carries on a generations-old tradition in my family: the celebratory act of cooking a child and eating it each Autumn. Now, one can certainly disagree with my family’s traditions, and, of course, my personal choices as a human being. They cannot, however, impugn my character, or the character of my husband or other family members, by implying things that are simply not true. Anyone who knows me knows I love children dearly. I love them so much, in fact, that I sometimes eat them. Should this lead people to believe that I mean them harm? I think not. We all express love differently. You may hug a child, give gifts, express positive reinforcement. I eat.
In this country founded on the rights of the individual, I would ask the opinion-makers and op-ed writers to consider that while the choices I make may not be the choices they would make, they are valid choices nonetheless. Just ask anyone who’s bit into a lightly grilled third grader.
