Interview with Mary Katharine Ham, Editor-at-Large and Fox News contributor
March 16, 2013 at 5:06 pm in News by Dustin Siggins 4 Comments
Mary Katharine Ham has long been a popular face and name in conservative politics. She has made her name in humorous and hard-hitting political commentary and Peeps. She is currently with the blog Hot Air and a contributor with Fox News.
The Hot Air/Townhall.com table was next to the Tea Party Patriots livestream station at CPAC, where Mary Katharine was kind enough to sit down and chat with me for a few minutes:
Dustin Siggins: Give us a little history of your time in politics.
Mary Katharine Ham: I was sort of a politically aware kid. I didn’t realize it at the time, but I started noticing some libertarian/conservative leanings as a child. I was sort of politically attuned, but not active, even through college. I didn’t work on campaigns or anything like that, but I paid attention.
My first job was as a reporter for a daily newspaper. I loved it. I learned pretty quickly that I was too right-wing for a sunny future in a traditional newsroom. So I had to make a decision to either hide everything I believed or take a different path, announce my beliefs, do sports journalism, or work in politics. I chose politics because I didn’t want to burn out on sports.
I came to D.C. and ran a magazine for The Heritage Foundation. In 2006, someone asked me to cover for a person on CNN, and I didn’t crash and burn, so I ended up on TV. Which wasn’t part of the plan.
I’ve worked at Townhall.com and The Weekly Standard, and since mid-2012 I have worked at Hot Air. Working there is a perfect fit for me. My colleagues are smart, and funny.
DS: Do you still do the Peeps?
MKH: I don’t. I haven’t done them in a while. With Easter coming up, though, I may reprise the role. In fact, at National Harbor, the only Peeps store in the nation is in this complex. So I know where to go for supplies. I don’t much use my YouTube channel, but feel free take a look at www.YouTube.com/MKHammer.
DS: What do you typically write about at Hot Air?
MKH: Usually news of the day. I am interested specifically interested in the results of Obamacare. Ideological opposition aside, the logistics of implementation – how bad the federal government is at creating technology that works, marrying federal and state bureaucracies, etc. – the rollout is going to be interesting.
Especially since it’s all supposed to be done by January 1, 2014. Exchanges are supposed to open for business in October of this year, I believe, and most or all won’t be operational.
I am interested as to whether in 2014 the nation has to have the whole, stupid, conversation again because the new law has ruined the old system and created nothing that’s even a semblance of a replacement.
The story was always, “Things are bad, but will get better in 2014.” What happens if/when they can’t get it off the ground in 2014?
DS: Philip Klein criticized CPAC and the conservative movement as a whole for not doing enough on health care in the past and, it appears, going into the future. Do you agree?
MKH: I do agree. As we’ve seen in the presidential election and in the health care discussion, though I think it should be sufficient to say “This program is really terrible and is failing,” or “This President is terrible and is failing,” it’s not. We have to be smart.
For instance, in Utah, the governor was pro-active at creating his own state exchange. Bare bones, free-market, etc. This allows him to say to the federal government, “I have my own plan.” It gives him negotiating power now. So I worry that we seed the field by not creating laboratories where we can say “this is working for people.” Unfortunately, Obamacare has created an environment where such laboratories are illegal.
Frankly, Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal is a good guy to lead on this, and wish he talked about health care more. He’s great on the issue – former head of HHS for President Bush, and at the age of 25, he took over the age entire health care system of Louisiana and made it much better.
I believe more like you MUST muscle your way into the news markets in order for the truth to be heard, read, and seen, because…’When those we are accustomed to blindly trusting begin to speak or act in a subversive way, it is imperative that those with a platform and access speak out in a bold and forthright manner…as when it’s necessary to deal with a ship’s captain who has gone utterly mad…anything less would be uncivilized, destructive, and treasonous…’
‘Editing, spinning, purposely flip-flopping with no explanation, uttering half-truths, sins of omission (what have I left out?)-are all lying or bearing false witness, and NOT what we can really call ‘just politics.’ You can’t be purposely just a ‘little’ left or right of the truth.’ Liberals are not only expert, but also passionate about obfuscation.
It’s apparent today that we are all either part of the problem and therefore treasonous, or we are part of the solution, and therefore promoting America.
Thanks for all that you do, Mary Katherine!
A state exchange is by definition not free market. And it is ultimately not a victory to use a smaller statist program as a rationale against adopting another, worse form of statism. In doing so, you are giving moral validity to statism. And that is the problem. If you acknowledge that it is the government’s role to end suffering and solve individual problems, then if there is any suffering or problem anywhere, then you are morally obligated to enlarge government until it is solved. That is why we have a death spiral of statism today. You cannot keep the scope of “the needy” limited. If you give people government money for being poor or broke, then you create more people who are poor and broke, and you do so at the expense of people who chose to live more responsibility.
What we need to roll all of it back – including Utah’s exchange.
RED State, BLUE State.
Do you live in a BLUE State, a BLUE District or a BLUE County? Today, 03/13/13, I have decided to change my voter registration from Independent to Democrat. If you live in one of the above BLUE limbo states and are a Republican, Libertarian or Conservative, I’d advise you do the same.
The only way we are going to get the Progressive’s out of office is thru the primaries. In a general election it is usually (D) v (R) and a Democrat voter is only going to vote D and a Republican voter is only going to vote R. If there are more D’s than R’s you know the outcome. Low information voters only look at the letter following the name on the ballot.
In a primary election, each party has an election to choose who is going to be in the general election. In some states (15) you can only vote in your chosen party affiliation and in the general election you can vote for whom ever is on the ballot. Different-primary-election-rules-by-state-map.
For years, Democrats have been crossing over to choose their parties opponent as well as the Liberal Media. Mitt Romney was labeled as the Country Club Candidate and that is who the Democrats wanted to run against the most. Well, I say we do the same to get the current Progressives out of office. Keeping a Progressive off the ballot or choosing a person so far Left that Independents or moderate Democrats will not vote for them in the general election is a good start. If you receive calls from pollsters, it will really screw up their political weighting system.
If you have qualms about being called a Liberal, you can give the correction by calling yourself a Classical Liberal.
Sadly there is a segment of our population that believes the government should care for us all. But that is not the way the world works. Each of us is responsible for our own life, our own actions, and our own family.