The Undefinable

Conservatives love to banter endlessly about a variety of subjects with which they are either completely unfamiliar ( ie: climate change ) or do know just enough about to be exceedingly dangerous.

Now that Obama has delivered his strategy address to the nation, it's time for those same conservatives to run around to every show they can get booked on and distribute the latest ream of talking points. Chief of which are ones about "success".

John McCain, the Senator who has graced more Sunday morning talk-shows since the election than just about anyone ever has, has sent in a piece to Mary Katherine Ham of the Weekly Standard blog.

The title of the article ( likely written by staffers and not McCain, hence byline "form the desk of John McCain" - like it's some memo about remembering to send out your Christmas cards ) speaks about how "success" is the real exit strategy.

Success is the real exit strategy. When we have achieved our goals in Afghanistan, our troops should begin to return home with honor, but that withdrawal should be based on conditions on the ground, not arbitrary deadlines. In the days ahead, I will seek to address this and other questions I have about the President’s policy, including my continuing concern about the civilian aspect of our strategy.

The whole piece is just like that, glittering generalities that we have heard since the beginning. No real meat, just enough filler to make it look like he has some real idea, some real concept that people can get behind. But I do have one question - what is "success".

Ever since Bush dragged our attention and focus away from Afghanistan and said that Iraq is the place to be, there have been multiple definitions of what "failure" is, but no definition of "success". There really hasn't even been a final goal that could be even loosely construed as attainable shown to the American public. It's all been about failure. Every discussion from the Right has been born from the catalyst of failure.

When people like McCain hear "exit strategy" they don't realize that even if there is "success", there would still have to be a strategy on how our forces leave. Were there just going to not worry about that until this illusive and mysterious "success" just happened one day and then worry about how to bring our men and women home? I wouldn't put that past them.

What we need to be asking our elected officials is simple - tell us what "success" in Afghanistan is, and be specific.

Hamming It Up

There's nothing more exciting to a rabid, right-wing, conservative than when someone on their side is allegedly beaten for their beliefs. That is, unless it's "caught on tape" and their black. Now, couple that with the allegation that the person doing the attacking is also black and you've got white-hot masturbatory material for at least a weeks worth of news cycles on Fox.

Mary Katherine Ham leapt head first into the shallow end of the pool with her piece in the Weekly Standard about the "beating" of Kenneth Gladney

Brown said Gladney told him he was also kicked by a woman, but Brown didn't witness that part. Gladney then went to the hospital, Brown said.

"He sustained some injuries to his back, some bruising," he said.

Brown said a black male with an SEIU t-shirt and a white man in an SEIU t-shirt were both arrested on suspicion of assault, while another man left the scene before police got there. A woman was arrested in connection with the incident, but not for assault. Brown was not sure of the charge. The incident happened around 9 p.m., he said.

His account seems to match up with the Post-Dispatch report, and would account for three of the six arrests—two for assault, and one on lesser charges.

....there was a clear effort from liberals to portray any scuffles from last night's town halls as the inevitable violent eruption of right-wing mob members, but it is interesting that there was no violence until the night liberal interest group HCAN and Dem members of Congress started calling in union members to "protect" them and host these events. It's also interesting that the only documented cases of violence thus far seem to be going one way. The Slapper, seen on Drudge and in these pictures (9-17), is local Tampa Democratic operative Karen Miracle.

That's not to say opponents of Obamacare were entirely without fault throughout the night, but thus far, there's much more evidence going the other way.

The only problem with Ham's drooling excitement over the alleged beating of Gladney, aside from their being no clear witness to the fight, is that she even embeds the video in her piece.

Take a look at this and see if you can tell what happened.



You'll notice about 1:20 in to the tape that Gladney has walked over to the person holding the camera and then proceeds to wave down a cop car.

Media Matters has more on this:

The only real mystery from the incident is why Tea Party member Gladney, who's seen up-close after the brief encounter walking around and talking to people and who appears to be injury-free, then decided to go to the hospital to treat injuries to his "knee, back, elbow, shoulder and face." All that from a two-second fall to the pavement?

Also unclear is why he contacted a newspaper reporter, or why his attorney wrote up lavish accounts and sent them to conservative bloggers, or why Gladney and his attorney appeared on Fox News.

Conservatives, aching for a juicy story about someone being attacked at one of the townhalls across the country, could barely contain their collective, orgasmic, shrieks.

The video doesn't show the beating, yet it is being held up as some sort of smoking gun against SEIU. But this doesn't matter to people like Mary Katherine Ham or any that have nothing but utter disdain and contempt for not only unions but the ery fabric of reality itself.

Oh, Dear Sweet 8lb. Baby Jeebus.

I'm all for a good laugh, but something tells me that Playboy writer Guy Cimbalo is doing this in that classic "tongue-in-cheek" fashion. The topic is the ever creepy "hate-fucking" - you know, not really liking a woman ( that is nominally attractive in a sort of fetishistic way ) to the extent that you would shag them rotten.

Granted, it takes a particular kind of sick humor to understand the "hate-fuck". And no, it's not a rape joke. Needless to say, the Hot Air crew is PISSED.

Here's the list:

Michelle Malkin

Megyn Kelly

Mary Katherine ( mouth the size of a canned )Ham

Amanda Carpenter

Elisabeth ( don't make me cry Whoopie )Hasselbeck

Dana Perino

Laura Ingraham

Pamela Geller ( who? )

Michelle Bachman

.............ok, I think I just threw-up a little.

and.......

Peggy Noonan?

The last four would practially require a double dose of viagra and some whiskey in order to even tolerate an evening of neo-conservative coitus.

All this silliness aside, I have seen some comments on HotAir by guys that had to be cranking-one-out while complimenting the woman they refer to as "The Boss".

Mary Katherine Ham Has Not One Clue - About Anything

Mary-Katherine Ham, one of Bill O'Reilly's "pretty-girls-to-have-on-the-show", seems to think that joking about Sarah Palin and calling huge chunks of America "Un-American" are one-in-the-same.

So, Palin was just "joshin" with the crowd, "doncha-know".

Right.

Then, Mary-Katherine goes on to blame - who else - the media:

The media has devoted hundreds of stories of late to the tenor of audience comments at McCain-Palin rallies, fretting about "rage" and "incitement" by the campaign, but the only account of Stewart's appearance is a one-sentence mention in the Boston Globe, and his abusive Palin comments are not included.

Ham posted the video in her blog. I'm sure there's a better version out there somewhere: