Area woman named worst person in the world
Cynthia Davis enjoying what surely is a rare restaurant meal (2001 Post-Dispatch photo by David Carson).
Thanks, in part, to a recent Post-Dispatch editorial, Missouri state Rep. Cynthia Davis, R-O’Fallon, was the subject of Keith Olbermann’s scorn this week on his “Countdown with Keith Olbermann” show on MSNBC. In fact, he named her the World’s Worst Person – twice.
Watch the clips here and here.
She was ridiculed both in our editorial and by Olbermann for her condescending remarks about child hunger in a newsletter. One of her helpful comments was that “hunger can be a positive motivator.”
She’s right. Hunger for political relevance can motivate a vapid suburbanite (who is supported by taxpayers) to make astonishingly inappropriate and inaccurate remarks about poverty and families. Read her newsletter here.
Here’s one “tidbit” from Ms. Davis that was not included in the editorial or on Olbermann’s “Countdown” show:
“It really is all about increasing government spending, which means an increase in taxes for us to buy more free lunches and breakfasts. Parents get the same food stamp allotment regardless of how many extra meals are being provided to their children over the summer. This equates to an increase in taxpayer funded food programs.”
Likewise, parents who receive “food stamps” (now called “benefits” from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program) also do not get an increase in their allotment when their children are on summer (or any other) break from school, which means that the same SNAP benefit allocation may have to provide one or two more meals per day per child.
According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food and Nutrition Service information sheet on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program:
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49 percent of all participants are children (18 or younger), and 61 percent of them live in single-parent households.
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52 percent of SNAP households include children.
So, is Cynthia Davis worthy of Olbermann’s World’s Worst Person title?
(By the way, we do have a response from Ms. Davis. We’re going to run it on the oped page next week.)
Jamie Riley is the P-D letters editor and gatekeeper of the letters blog. Before joining the editorial page in May 2005, she was a reporter and page designer. Jamie lives in University City with her husband, Charles, daughter, Elise, and the world's best Jack Russell terrier, Logan, better known as Stinky. 
Ms. Riley - Just how do you know her statements are “inaccurate.” How much PERSONAL experience do you have on this subject? I have plenty and a lot of what she says is true.
I don’t have time to go into lengthy post, but I can tell you there is a very large number of children in the schools my children attend receiving free lunches who do not qualify. It is really quite simple to get. You fill out a form stating your income, that the school district doesn’t verify, and viola! I could get it for my kids too, by listing just my salary as opposed to combined (as alot of people do). It sure would be easier for me not to make my kids breakfast and lunch and it would certainly save me some money, but I have integrity and feel I should do my job as a parent and refrain from stealing from taxpayers.
The editorialists at the Post-Dispatch are so, so naive as to the way things REALLY work.
This was posted on another thread by Steven Jackson, and he say’s it as well as anyone:
-”I have worked with Cynthia Davis and I am as far from a fan of hers as one can get. She is one of the most annoying, ignorant, imbecilic legislators I have ever had the displeasure to be around.
But even a stopped clock is right a couple of times a day and this is a case where she gets it close to correct. Why is the state spending money to provide lunches and food for kids at schools and in the summer.
I could care less who “qualifies” as I have also read the qualifications for SCHIP and Medicaid and other government programs that give away the farm to people who COULD afford it but choose not to.
She is right when she says it is funny that these so called working poor families have enough money for TVs, cable or satellite, cell phones, nice clothes, cars, jewelry, video games, etc yet they cant feed their kids.
NEW FLASH LIBERALS: If there is a way to game to system, people will. I worked with people who made good money working for the state, great benefits. Yet this person would dress shabby on the weekend and hit up the local foodbanks so they didnt have to spend as much as the grocery story. Yet they had money for 2 cell phones, cable tv, xbox, wii, PS3 and a yearly vacation to an island. People will take advantage.
Does anyone deny there are poor kids not getting enough to eat? NO of course not. But let’s be realistic and see that a vast majority of these kids are not starving like kids in Africa or South Ameria. The majority are kids of lazy parents who are gaming the system because they can.
But this is the standard liberal M.O. when you do not like the idea or if the idea makes too much sense do not attack the idea you attack the person.
Cynthia is a moron plain and simple. But this time she at least got it right in that it needs to be looked at.”
-Thank you Steven Jackson
“So, is Cynthia Davis worthy of Olbermann’s World’s Worst Person title?”
Sure she is, since the BDU is a no talent partisan hack (like the “editorial staff”) and no thinking person gives a rats butt what he says when he climbs out of his bathtub, he can say whatever he wants to his 12 viewers, and the Post Disgrace can repeat it enough so viewship or readership will break 100 people.
It is sad that the Post Disgrace is so low on talent that they have to stoop to mentioning BDU three times in one week.
Oh gawd, thinking anything Olbermann says/does is worthy of mentioning…
Forgot — Jamie is really, really into ThinkProgress, Kos, etc.
`I don’t have time to go into (sic) lengthy post….’ Convenient, FTPD. You can save face and also not do the work, all in one broad swoop. Please, detail your personal experience and how this makes you `not’ naive. Inquiring minds want to know.
One thing that jumps out of the USDA report is the strong correlation between childhood hunger and being part of a “family” with a single parent. Maybe the “worst person in the world” could be indentfied by Keith Uberloon as the parent who abandon’s his/her family.
It’s also interesting that for all the hue and cry about hunger in America, another leading indicator of poverty is childhood obesity.
Now, regarding the question asked at the end of the piece, I would say `no.’ I’d put Davis fourth, behind Kim Jong-il, Tokyo Rush, and then our state’s lewdtenant governor, Peter Kinder.
“You can save face and also not do the work…”
…just like EJ Rotert on so many occasions.
Like when we’re given deep thoughts such as:
“Davis fourth, behind Kim Jong-il, Tokyo Rush, and then our state’s lewdtenant governor, Peter Kinder.”
Likewise, hunger for professional relevance can motivate a vapid, suburbanite, third-string “journalist” to regurgitate every other loopy item shes sees in the kook-left media.
Go back to your seat on the bench, Jamie. The one next to Eddie.
How many people actually watch MSNBC? My cable company doesn’t even carry it. So, I’m not surprised the editorial hacks at the PD trot him out as some kind of expert. Olbermann was terrible as a reader on ESPN. Now he’s supposed to be some kind of left-wing extremist pundit. That’s laughable. If that’s the best the extremists on the left can do, they are a sorry lot. I’m sure the PD editorial hacks piled on thinking to ride on his coattails. But, if nobody watches him, what coattails does he have. I’d like to see the ratings of his so-called show. I’m sure they are just as laughable as he is.