I would feel awful if this happened to me. Punched in the gut, absolutely, incredibly awful. And the inevitable speculation would make me feel a million times worse.
In general, I find this kind of speculation maddening- because to me, the chance that speculation might be right doesn't at all outweigh the risk that it could also be wrong and that you might be throwing salt in the wound of someone who has just had their rights as an author spat upon and who feels really violated. I especially cannot understand it coming from other authors. I would be devastated if this happened to me, and while I understand that part of being a mega-success/celebrity IS people speculating and spreading rumors and analyzing everything you do, that doesn't mean that any person who contributes to it doesn't have a choice about whether to treat the person behind the rumors as a celebrity or as a person, and to me- "celebrity" wins way, way too often. This bothers me- especially among those of us who are in the same business and the same art. I feel like there's a certain amount of respect and empathy that authors usually show for each other- respect for people's privacy, for their wishes, for their process, and for their art- and I hate that when a person becomes successful enough, or if they happen to have reached that success without going through the trenches or paying their dues in whatever way some other person thinks you "should," then it's like all of a sudden, that respect and courtesy is absolutely gone and it's open season.
Stephenie Meyer may not be a member of this community, but she IS a member of our wider community, and I honestly do not believe that the blueboard- or any writing community- is the place to be speculating about her motives or flat-out calling her a liar by implication. We've worked for years to make this such an open, accepting, and supportive community online, and that's why I consider this my online home. While I support critiques and thoughtful discussions of the books, speculating about SM and any of her actions is something very different to me, and I can't help but think that if something similar was happening to a member of this board, we'd all be up in arms. To me, part of being the kind of community we are is the support we give each other- but also the support we give our peers and colleagues who AREN'T represented on this board. I'd like to think of this as an open community that supports all people who write or aspire to write about children and teens, not just the ones we know, and not just the ones whose levels of success we can relate to or appreciate. That doesn't mean we can't critique the books- I think the Breaking Dawn thread has led to so many interesting discussions of the craft and the YA genre, and the diversity of opinions on that thread and the thought people put into them is the reason why. But speculating about a message SM posts to her website, a letter to readers that conveys her own emotional distress over something that would be devastating to most writers, and calling her motives and involvement into question ISN'T going to lead us to interesting discussions about the craft. It's only going to lead to more speculation, and I think that we owe fellow authors- successful or not, part of this board or not- a lot more respect than that.
I'm saying this as a person, not a moderator- so take my opinion as what it is- an opinion and a plea to say whatever you want about the books, but treat SM the way you would want to be treated, the way that you would want your writing friends to be treated, and maybe most importantly, the way that you would want them treated HERE, on this board. It says far more about us than it does about her, and I'm feeling uncomfortable enough being part (even the dissenting part) of some of these threads that even though I've greatly enjoyed a lot of our discussions, I'm bowing out now.
Sorry for the rant, guys- no offense is meant to anyone, and I of course think very highly of you all. If this were to segue into a discussion of how we would react if our first drafts were leaked, how we would feel, and correspondingly, what the role of the first draft is for us as authors, or how our emotions about a work can play into the writing of it, I would be all over that. But a "did she, or didn't she" conversation in which we're concentrating on picking apart SM's reaction to the situation and analyzing it for truth value is not for me, and I felt like it was important to say that.