Wholesale failure in the care of Caylee

I’ve been chewing on a bone for the last couple of weeks: The case of Casey Anthony, and whether she murdered her daughter Caylee and got away with it.

I can’t say whether she was guilty of murdering her 3-year-old little girl or not.

I wasn’t in the courtroom, I wasn’t on the jury, I didn’t hear the testimony.

But I do have a question for the grandparents, George and Cindy Anthony: What the hell?

Where were they in the care of Caylee?

Where were they when it was obvious after a few days that their granddaughter had gone missing?

I’m a parent, and I’m at that Baby Boomer stage of my life where, given the age of my own kids, I’m eligible to be a grandparent. I will be a step-grandparent come January.

I’m upset and outraged that there’s no accounting for what happened to Caylee.

Her mother, Casey, was the last to see her alive. But that’s all we know for sure.

Unfortunately, the case that she murdered her daughter wasn’t proven -- beyond a reasonable doubt to the jury’s satisfaction.

Neither was it shown in court the defense claim that Caylee accidentally drowned in the family pool and that her grandfather, George Anthony, helped Casey cover it up by making it look like she had been murdered.

The defense also claimed that Casey didn’t report anything to authorities because of the power George had over her after years of sexual abuse as a child.

But it’s not for the defense to prove its case; it’s for the prosecution to prove its case.

As an armchair grandparent, I’d like to think I would have done better.

However dysfunctional the family was the care of the 3-year-old should trump everything else.

If Casey was such a party girl -- who couldn’t accept responsibility for raising her daughter -- then George and Cindy should have stepped in more aggressively. They should have given Caylee the stability of home that Casey obviously couldn’t provide.

It seems that in the course of giving up their role as parents to Casey they also gave up their responsibility as grandparents to Caylee.

The lot of them may not be guilty of breaking the law, but they sure are guilty of failing Caylee.