I saw you.
I was in a hotel room in Athens, Georgia, running late, so late I was fearful I would completely miss breakfast with my co-workers. I was hungry and perhaps a bit hung over, my allergies were flaring up, and I certainly hadn't had enough sleep. It's an understatement to say I didn't feel well. And I'd taken on a task that always brings me down: I'd been fighting with my hair, desperately trying to straighten it. When I finally gave up, defeated and dejected, conceding to the curls and frizz for the day, I turned off the blow dryer and looked at the tv. There you were.
You were sitting there with Meredith Vieira, your back a bit too straight, your hair a bit too coifed, an Alabama boy all made up for the big city. I dove across the bed to the remote control and let my thumb rest heavily on the volume button until the sound of your voice rattled the walls.
You were talking about seeking justice, justice in the form of your further prosecution of Gabe Watson, the Alabama man who, in Australia, pled guilty to manslaughter in the death of his new bride, the man who received a woefully light sentence from the Australian authorities.
Vieira sat across from you. She leaned in as she watched you, listened to you, let you have your say. And then she said exactly what the rest of the world was thinking: you're Attorney General of Alabama, boy, with no jurisdiction in Australia.
It was the moment at which surely many Americans chuckled nervously into their coffee cups. Maybe they sighed, shook their heads or maybe they just turned off their tv's, the punchline all too familiar: Alabama, the butt of the joke again.
And to understand this reaction, Mr. King, it's really simple. Yes, it's sad that Watson was so lightly punished, but he was, in fact, punished. And it was done by the authorities who have obvious jurisdiction. You don't have jurisdiction. Not over the Watson case anyway.
But Desta, she was murdered in your fair state, our fair state. And when you were approached just a few months back by people pleading for you to do something, anything, to help find justice for Desta, you didn't even muster up the polite lip-service they'd expected to get from you. Perhaps justice or your concern for it is only for the tv cameras, or maybe there has to be a trip to the big city, the really big city, before you can be too very concerned.
So watching you that morning on tv, it was hard to reconcile what you were saying with how little you've done for Desta. When she collapsed to the ground with her last breath, it was the red dirt of Alabama onto which she fell. And you've done nothing. Not a damn thing.