This woman, Madelyne Toogood, was caught on tape maliciously beating her daughter in an Indiana Kohl's parking lot last Friday. I watched the video of the beating this morning on CNN - and make no mistake, this is a closed-fist beating - and I was sickened. The newscasters had to present a veneer of impartiality, but I don't have to. This woman should be in jail. She should not be allowed to keep her children. She is neither fit for society, nor for motherhood.

This wasn't a "kid whines for ice cream for the eighty-ninth time and you're having a bad day anyway and you lose it and smack them on the rear" kind of hit that happens once in five years. It was a "shut up you stupid girl I wish I'd never had you and if I hit you hard enough and often enough maybe you'll shut up and go away" kind of hit.

Madelyne has a criminal history and was apparently angry because Kohl's employees refused to process a suspect return for her. Good start. Then we see her walk to the parking lot, put her child in the car and (because she assumes no one can see) begins to assault her. First the girl is shaken roughly, then her ponytail is grabbed and used to yank her head around violently, then she is thrown into her car seat and even though we can't see the girl, we can see a closed fist making contact with something about head-height. I doubt it was the car seat. And the very worst part of the whole tape is watching that child's foot twitching after mom stops beating.

Apparently Madelyne's family has been "less than cooperative" with the authorities (they are suspected of hiding her), but the tape is being played repeatedly on news stations nationwide and it's not easy to hide from outraged Amercians. Just a note to my friends and family: if I see you hit a child repeatedly in the way that I saw this woman beat her child, I will personally zip tie your wrists together and drive you to the police station after a quick stop at a tattoo shop where I'll pay to have 'I beat four-year-olds" engraved on your forehead.