I'm calling bullshit. Now, Kate and I were not close by any means. We probably only said a few words to each other, ever. But I was in her orbit for long enough to recognize, for the first time, that the random name a politician was throwing around had been attached to an actual person, and not a cartoon character who came complete with "boing" sounds when she dropped things. It pissed me off, and even affected our class's ability to mourn:
Her brother wasn't having it either, going on CNN and telling Anderson Cooper, "Donald Trump talks about Kate Steinle like he knows her. I've never heard a word from his campaign manager, I've never heard a word from him. It's disconcerting. I don't want to be affiliated with someone who doesn't have the common courtesy to reach out and ask about Kate, and our political views and what we want."
It's especially upsetting because lost in the noise of using a pretty young woman's death as a political lightning rod is the fact that it might have been a tragic accident, not the cold-blooded killing it was made out to be.
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