Years ago my daughter, wife, and I took a trip to Cabo San Lucas–a resort town in Mexico, and a tourist’s nightmare. At every turn, hordes of people assault you, vying to sell something. Even the man who led us to the Hertz shuttle bus tried to hard sell me a timeshare in town. Turns out he had no connection to Hertz whatsoever and used the sign as a ruse.
We had come to Cabo for some R&R. We had reservations at the long-gone Twin Dolphins hotel. The Twin Dolphins in the early 2000s was quite a luxurious hotel, which attracted, among others, a Hollywood crowd.
One evening, my wife and daughter having gone to bed, I visited the bar for a drink but quickly fell asleep in my chair. I awoke to find ice cream dripping down my face. On opening my eyes, I saw this attractive blond woman berating the culprit and offering me some tissues to clean up. She was outraged and really scolded the offender, who as a lark had dumped it on me to stop my snoring. I thanked her for her kind deed then retired to my bedroom.
The following evening, after dinner, I pointed out the woman to Rita. She was sitting with some friends and they were playing word games. We often played similar games at home and at one point Rita approached them and described a game we sometimes played. This led to a multi-faceted conversation. We were having a really good time with this smart, eloquent group when eventually politics came up. This trip to Mexico happened shortly after the election of George W. Bush. Laura, the woman who had helped me the previous night, mentioned that she had met Bush. Naturally, I said something about him being a fucking moron. Not the right thing to say; she launched into an aggressive defense of the president. She told us how smart he was and how his ideas were brilliant. When my wife and I defended our position (we did not shirk from this onslaught) she grew more agitated and her rather lengthy tirade ended with:
“America! Love it or leave it.” Unsurprisingly, this concluded what had been a pleasant interchange between strangers.
The next morning, her friends, including one man who turned out to be her brother, individually approached us and apologized for her performance. They said that she really was a very nice person, but passionate about politics. We were not upset by her harangue, as it’s always fun to meet someone with an opposite point of view, but we were bemused by its intensity. We subtly avoided each other for the rest of our stay. Before we left Cabo, I asked one of her friends who she was as she looked vaguely familiar. Her name was Laura Ingraham.
A few years ago (2007), we heard that she was coming to a local book store to promote her book, Power to the People. In her opening remarks she decried President Bush. This surprised me, as she had so vigorously defended him in our first meeting. At question time, I stood up, reminded her that we had met before and that then she had praised Bush, and queried her disdain for him. Before she could answer, the audience started to boo me and shouted me down.
[Well, Roy—apparently she gave the people power! ––Ed.]
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