Honestly, just, of course there were inconsistencies from a bunch of people trying to remember stuff that seemed insignificant at the time, but which developed huge and horrible retrospective significance. Anyone who's ever sat in on a court case with witnesses will see how very fallible memory is, and how much witness accounts vary. And can you not conceive of reasons why a distraught parent might refuse to answer questions in frustration at an investigation she feels is going down the wrong alley?
These threads always seem to end up primly saying the same thing -- the McCanns didn't love their children because they put them in creches/holiday clubs, because they left them unattended, because they didn't cry enough and were too articulate after their daughter disappeared, because they didn't perform grief and guilt in a viewer-friendly manner, because they wouldn't participate in a reconstruction etc, because they have mounted a massive publicity campaign.
This is from Anne Enright's LRB essay 'Disliking the McCanns', which is still one of the best analyses of some of the queasy responses to the parents in the immediate aftermath, in which AE maes herself equally culpable:
Distancing yourself from the McCanns is a recent but potent form of magic. It keeps our children safe. Disliking the McCanns is an international sport. You might think the comments on the internet are filled with hatred, but hate pulls the object close; what I see instead is dislike – an uneasy, unsettled, relentlessly petty emotion. It is not that we blame them – if they can be judged, then they can also be forgiven. No, we just dislike them for whatever it is that nags at us. We do not forgive them the stupid stuff, like wearing ribbons, or going jogging the next day, or holding hands on the way into Mass.
I disliked the McCanns earlier than most people (I’m not proud of it). I thought I was angry with them for leaving their children alone. In fact, I was angry at their failure to accept that their daughter was probably dead. I wanted them to grieve, which is to say to go away. In this, I am as bad as people who complain that ‘she does not cry.’
...
On 25 May, in their first television interview, given to Sky News, Gerry McCann spoke a little about grief, as he talked about the twins. ‘We’ve got to be strong for them, you know, they’re here, they do bring you back to earth, and we cannot, you know, grieve one. We did grieve, of course we grieved, but ultimately we need to be in control so that we can influence and help in any way possible, not just Sean and Amelie, but the investigation.’
Most of the animosity against the McCanns centres on the figure of Madeleine’s beautiful mother. I am otherwise inclined. I find Gerry McCann’s need to ‘influence the investigation’ more provoking than her flat sadness, or the very occasional glimpse of a wounded narcissism that flecks her public appearances. I have never objected to good-looking women. My personal jury is out on the issue of narcissism in general; her daughter’s strong relationship with the camera lens causes us a number of emotions, but the last of them is always sorrow and pain.
The McCanns feel guilty. They are in denial. They left their children alone. They cannot accept that their daughter might be dead. Guilt and denial are the emotions we smell off Gerry and Kate McCann, and they madden us.
That's an extract - It's behind a paywall at the LRB, but available in full on this blog:
toodumbtolivearchive.blogspot.co.uk/2007/10/disliking-mccanns.html