By Chris Ingram

Newt the narcissist. Or, he’s no different than a 6 year old.

In his career Newt Gingrich has demonstrated brilliance, while at the same time frequent shades of immaturity, lack of self-awareness, and reality — among other traits. I came across some website (click here) that lists several personality disorders that are similar to Gingrich’s personality. I can’t tell who wrote this website or why they wrote it, or who they plan to vote for for president, but it’s on the Internet, so it must be true.

The site has several interesting links with the following titles: What is a personality disorder? | Narcissistic Personality Disorder How to recognize a narcissist | Traits discussed | (and best of all), “Now We Are Six.”

The “Now We Are Six” link is particularly relevant to Newt. In this article, the author (who somewhere in the disorganized website says he/she isn’t a doctor or therapist) lists several traits and characteristics of a six-year-old and how those are similar to an adult with a narcissitic personality disorder, or, are like Newt.

Note that I am not a doctor, and I never so much as even ever played one on TV, but watching Mr. Gingrich from afar, you have to wonder what’s going on inside the space in between his hairy ears. Just consider the traits and characteristics of a narcissist, and how similar they are to a 6 yr. old – or to Newt. Take them for what they are worth — they’re listed on some dubious website but they didn’t come with any anti-Newt liberal media bias as far as I can tell. That my friends comes from me. Well, all but the liberal part.

Here is the list as referenced from the book of the name Now we are six:

• Six can, oh so often, be expansive and out-of-bounds, contrary…hard…to live with. (p. 4)

• Your typical six-year-old is a paradoxical little person, and bipolarity is the name of the game. Whatever he does, he does the opposite just as readily. In fact, sometimes the choice of some certain object or course of action immediately triggers an overpowering need for its opposite. (p. 1, the first paragraph of the book)

• Six’s reversals are truly something to be reckoned with. (p. 2)

• “I love you” rapidly changes to “I hate you.” (p. 2, 6)

• Stubborn and can’t make up mind (p. 2)

• The child is now the center of his own universe. (p. 2, 15)

• Delighted by any silly thing that calls attention to himself; may do silly, show-offy things to call attention to himself when he feels neglected or shut out (pp. 71-72)

• Arrogant (p. 7)

• Self-important (“extremely aware of the importance of being Six”) (p. 22)

• Demands rather than asks (twice on p. 6, 16)

• Thinks own way is always right (p. 7)

• Once started, will stick to a course of bad behavior or bad judgment regardless of the inevitability of being punished for it (p. 7)

• Asks to be flattered and praised as “good,” even (“rather sadly and touchingly”) following his worst behavior (p. 6)

• Can’t accept criticism (p. 7)

• Feelings are hurt over very small criticisms, comments, failures (p. 6)

• Is so extremely anxious to do well, to be the best, to be loved and praised, that any failure is very hard for him. (p. 6)

• Wants to win every time (p. 4, 21, 45)

• Poor sport, can’t stand to lose (p. 7, 16) Irreverent View editorial note: see Newt’s pal Bill McCollum.

• Argumentative and quarrelsome (p. 21)

• Defiant, pert, fresh, snippy (p. 6, 17)

• Competitive, combative (p. 20)

• Belligerent, verbally aggressive (p. 21)

• Threatens, calls names (p. 21)

• Jealous, envious (p. 7, 21)

• To make sure of winning, will cheat or make up own rules (pp. 21-22, 45)

• Complains that others are cheating and not following the rules (p. 45)

• Does not always tell the truth (p. 16)

• Will not admit to wrongdoing (p. 41) [Note: A technique is given for getting the facts out of kids that also works with narcissists: instead of asking if they did it, ask how they did it.]  goodness means the things explicitly required or allowed by parents or other authority figures; badness means the things explicitly disapproved of or forbidden (p. 66)

• Little forgiveness (p. 22)

• Very critical of others’ conduct (p. 22)

• Expects friendships to be resumed immediately following tremendous complaint and conflict (p. 22)

• Wants to boss (p. 21)

• Highly undifferentiated — everything is everywhere (p. 7)

• Can’t always tell the difference between “yours” and “mine,” and so often steals (pp. 39-41)

• “Random and unconstructive expenditure of energy” (p. 31)

• More interested in merely handling or using tools than in what is accomplished with them (pp. 53-54)  Less interested in actual final products than in whatever he may be doing at the moment(p. 56)

• Sixes love to dress up and pretend they are somebody else…. (p. 49)

You decide. Maybe Newt’s not a narcissist. But he certainly acts like a 6 year old.

Chris Ingram is the president and founder of 411 Communications a corporate and political communications firm, and publisher of Irreverent View. Ingram is a frequent pundit on Fox News and CNN, and has written opinion columns for the Washington Times, UPI, and National Review online. He is the Republican political analyst for Bay News 9, the only 24 hour all news channel in Florida’s largest media market, a contributing columnist to the Tampa Tribune, and host of “Chris Ingram’s Irreverent Views” on News Talk 1470 AM Tampa.  The opinions expressed here are those of author and do not represent the views of Bay News 9, the Tampa Tribune, or 1470 AM. E-mail Chris at: Chris@IrreverentView.com.

Please feel free to submit a comment on our blogs. By posting a comment you acknowledge reading and following the terms and conditions of posting found here.  You may also submit a comment by e-mail. If you e-mail a comment you consent to your comment and name being posted on the Irreverent View website. If you wish to remain completely anonymous, please state so in your e-mail.

The Tampa Tribune

Published January 22, 2012

Ask most Americans about “illegal immigration” and they are likely to conjure an image of someone of Hispanic origin swimming across the Rio Grande or evading border patrolmen in the desert. The reality is that just who is “illegal,” how they got here and their impact on our society is much more complex than the visual impression we get from television news.

Farmers say that if they were restricted to hiring only domestic workers, crops wouldn't get picked.

The Department of Homeland Security estimates that between 27 and 57 percent of the country’s 12 million to 14 million “illegals” are visa overstays — people who arrived legally with temporary, non-immigrant status and didn’t leave the country when their visas expired. Government policies perpetuate the problem because those who overstay their visa, once they leave, can’t ever come back legally due to their overstay violation.

The bumper sticker solution

I’m generally a law-and-order type, and I used to believe that if the first thing you do when you come to this country is break the law by entering it illegally, you ought to be rounded up and sent home.

But I’ve evolved. Illegal immigration is far too complicated an issue, with wide-ranging social, economic and emotional considerations; we shouldn’t expect a solution to be found on a bumper sticker.

So far, the federal government has yet to get the solution right. This is due in part to splintered factions of labor unions, business and agricultural groups, and “human rights” activists with divergent interests. As a result of federal inaction, several states have attempted to solve the illegal immigration problem within their borders with quick-fixes that are long on rhetoric, short on solutions and with devastating economic impacts — particularly on the farm economy, which relies heavily on immigrant labor.

The Georgia model

Last year Georgia enacted a tough law to rid the state of illegal immigrants, including a provision for employers to use the federal E-Verify program to check workers’ citizenship. It worked; and the result was Georgia farmers lost an estimated $150 million due to crops that sat in the field unpicked because the labor pool fled the state, according to the Georgia Fruit and Vegetable Growers Association.

Click here to read the full column in today’s Tampa Tribune.

Chris Ingram is the president and founder of 411 Communications a corporate and political communications firm, and publisher of Irreverent View. Ingram is a frequent pundit on Fox News and CNN, and has written opinion columns for the Washington Times, UPI, and National Review online. He is the Republican political analyst for Bay News 9, the only 24 hour all news channel in Florida’s largest media market. The opinions expressed here are those of author and do not represent the views of Bay News 9. E-mail him at: Chris@IrreverentView.com.

Please feel free to submit a comment on our blogs. By posting a comment you acknowledge reading and following the terms and conditions of posting found here.  You may also submit a comment by e-mail. If you e-mail a comment you consent to your comment and name being posted on the Irreverent View website. If you wish to remain completely anonymous, please state so in your e-mail.

By Chris Ingram

The Islamic terrorist who targeted Tampa with his hate hailed from the Baltics where radical factions aren’t all that radical — rather they are the norm. I’ve done consulting work in the region, and I can tell you the culture is a divisive breeding ground for extremists.

Mug shot of Sami Osmakac

According to the criminal complaint filed by the FBI (click here to read), accused terrorist Sami Osmakac said, among other things, that he wanted to “pay back” for wrongs done to Muslims. “We all have to die, why not die the Islamic way?”  “…they can take me in 5 million pieces.” The accused planned to take hostages, targeted Ybor city bars, the Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office operations center, and bridges between Tampa and St. Pete. At one point he told an FBI informant, “I know a lot of places where it gets real crowded.”

This guy is seriously messed up in the head and could have inflicted serious harm on a lot of innocent people — just because they don’t worship Allah. Congratulations and ‘thank you’ to the FBI and other lawn enforcement for catching this him.

Now it’s time for out elected officials to get serious about securing our borders and doing what is most effective and least expensive to prevent terrorism — profiling. Last time I checked, there haven’t been any incidents of terrorist attacks or planned plots of such attacks from 83 year-old grandmas, or five year-old kids — but that doesn’t stop the TSA from strip-searching them at the airport.

Read more about the suspect in The Tampa Tribune by clicking here.

Chris Ingram is the president and founder of 411 Communications a corporate and political communications firm, and publisher of Irreverent View. Ingram is a frequent pundit on Fox News and CNN, and has written opinion columns for the Washington Times, UPI, and National Review online. He is the Republican political analyst for Bay News 9, the only 24 hour all news channel in Florida’s largest media market. The opinions expressed here are those of author and do not represent the views of Bay News 9. E-mail him at: Chris@IrreverentView.com.

Please feel free to submit a comment on our blogs. By posting a comment you acknowledge reading and following the terms and conditions of posting found here.  You may also submit a comment by e-mail. If you e-mail a comment you consent to your comment and name being posted on the Irreverent View website. If you wish to remain completely anonymous, please state so in your e-mail.

By Chris Ingram

Congresswoman Kathy Castor (D-Tampa) recently sent out a taxpayer-funded “franked mail” piece that touts her “accomplishments” as a stooge to the liberal, Democrat Party establishment. Other big-government ideologues like Karl Marx and Vladimir Lennin would be proud of Ms. Castor’s record.

Photo explanation: In an attempt at shameless use of misleading imagery, I tried to find a photo of Ms. Castor on Google Images with Barack Obama to demonstrate what an out-of-touch zero she is. But she's apparently more politically astute than Charlie Crist because I couldn't find one of her and the POTUS. But to prove I looked, I found this pic of Barack Obama the worshiper of bovine regality bowing to THE Burger King. How disgraceful!

The following is a verbatim of Ms. Castor’s franked mail letter with my comments following in red italicized parentheticals (like this).

Enjoy the read. Whether you laugh, cry, (or both), you’ll understand why America’s glory days are behind us, and the future for our children is, quite frankly, going to suck.

Dear Friend,

Happy New Year! Working together, we made progress for our community in 2011 (Record unemployment, lower home values, and more foreclosures, not to mention our public school kids being let out on “early release” at 12:00 on Mondays in order to appease the teacher’s unions is progress?). Highlighted below are economic boosts we can build on in 2012. We will fight for every job for the Tampa Bay area (Apparently only as long as they are GOVERNMENT jobs). In fact, I am going to host a job fair (Paid for with stimulus money borrowed on the backs of our children no doubt) on March 3, so mark your calendar.

2011 HIGHLIGHTS (aka: Growth of GOVERNMENT)

We can count new jobs at the Port of Tampa (GOVERNMENT), MacDill Air Force Base (GOVERNMENT), Tampa Family Health Center’s new Sulphur Springs clinic (GOVERNMENT), Tampa International Airport (GOVERNMENT), and other businesses (Name one actual BUSINESS you helped grow Congresswoman). Existing jobs also were saved, particularly at the post offices (More GOVERNMENT and the epitome of government ineficiency, waste, and ineptitude) in East Tampa and Midtown St. Petersburg, as well as in the Hurricane Hunter Aircraft Operations at MacDill (Surprise! More GOVERNMENT).
• In 2011, we committed to helping our veterans by providing tax credits to businesses that hire unemployed veterans (This is called a qualified GOVERNMENT subsidy. Don’t get me wrong, I love our veterans, but this is shameless pandering at its best).
• Boosted travel and tourism through new airline flights from Tampa to Havana (Great for COMMUNIST CUBA’s GOVERNMENT! Don’t get me wrong here, I think the embargo is stupid but Castor’s pattern is not pro-business, it’s pro-government — even Fidell’s. And this claim is like saying because you like the color green you’re pro-environment!)
• Removed a burdensome tax on small businesses (Really? Name it. I’ll bet she ‘stalking about the $600 reporting requirement that would have required businesses to file a form 1099 for any business transaction in excess of $600 for goods and services. This requirement was part of the Obama Health Care bill that Ms. Castor voted for. It was eventually repealed after Republicans and pro-business groups like the Chamber of Commerce and NFIB opposed it. Read about it by clicking here.)
• Expanded infrastructure at MacDill Air Force Base (Guess what, more GOVERNMENT.)

NEXT UP (Survey said!: Even more GOVERNMENT!)

In the year ahead, I will work to play to the Tampa Bay area’s strengths. I will continue working to help small businesses create jobs (What do you mean continue? What single SMALL BUSINESS have you ever helped that wasn’t tied to GOVERNMENT spending or a GOVERNMENT contract of some sort?). Small businesses are the backbone of our economy, and I urge you to support them and shop local (Forget the fact that I am adding more burdensome GOVERNMENT regulations and complicated GOVERNMENT tax codes and the GOVERNMENT health care mandate they have to comply with. Do as I say, not as I do.). We also must continue investing in medical research and education (Of course “invest” is a liberal code word for take YOUR money from you and letting the GOVERNMENT decide where to spend research and education dollars.) Moffitt Cancer Center and the Haley VA  (GOVERNMENT) are leaders in medical research, and the University of South Florida (GOVERNMENT) is No. 9 among universities worldwide earning U.S. patents. We must promote health innovation and fight for grants (Fight for grants! Are you s*#t*n’ me? This is just more GOVERNMENT! How about we get GOVERNMENT to get the hell out of the way and we let innovation and natural incentive to succeed drive research?)

2012 JOB FAIR (aka: All I can do to fool people into thinking I know anything about jobs)
Meet with potential (Probably GOVERNMENT) employers at my job fair. Learn how to improve your resume, and other job-searching tips. Experts will be on hand to help you navigate the (GOVERNMENT) job-hunting (And grant-writing) process.
WHEN: 10 a.m. Saturday, March 3
WHERE: Workforce Tampa Career Center, 9215 N. Florida Ave.

Sincerely,

(Your pal) Kathy Castor (Not a friend of Chris’; I don’t know how my mom can stand to sit next to him on set at Bay News 9).

Chris Ingram is the president and founder of 411 Communications a corporate and political communications firm, and publisher of Irreverent View. Ingram is a frequent pundit on Fox News and CNN, and has written opinion columns for the Washington Times, UPI, and National Review online. He is the Republican political analyst for Bay News 9, the only 24 hour all news channel in Florida’s largest media market. The opinions expressed here are those of author and do not represent the views of Bay News 9. E-mail him at: Chris@IrreverentView.com.

Please feel free to submit a comment on our blogs. By posting a comment you acknowledge reading and following the terms and conditions of posting found here.  You may also submit a comment by e-mail. If you e-mail a comment you consent to your comment and name being posted on the Irreverent View website. If you wish to remain completely anonymous, please state so in your e-mail.

By Chris Ingram

This year’s GOP presidential primary looks like a Mad Magazine characature of “As the GOP Turns” or some other lame-ass soap opera.

First we had Michelle “I’m not that friggin’ crazy” Bachman, then it was Herman “999 = 9 girlfriends, 9 pay-offs, and 9 days in the basement wishing I’d never gotten in this race” Cain, to Ron “I really am that friggin crazy” Paul, to Mitt “I flipped, I flopped, and I have a greasy top and love Obama-care” Romney, to Newt “Frank Luntz lovin’, Pelosi huggin’, Clinton trashin’ but I’m a fat loser and a giant hypocrit ” Gingrich, to whatever his name is Rodney or Randall or Richard– who cares, whatever his name is he’s the wack-job dude who lost his senate election in PA and thinks abortion and stopping gays from being gay is all anyone cares about, to Rick “making G.W. Bush look like the Texas Einstein” Perry, voters aren’t all that inspired with what they know about the current field to say the least.

What they don’t know though is what could save the country in November. That is, the fact that Jon Huntsman remains the only candidate no one has yet paid any attention to. And he’s the lone guy who could beat Obama if GOP voters would just get over themselves (Karl Rove and Rush Limbaugh, this includes both of  you, you big old hunks of lard).

I’m hoping it’s so.

Huntsman is the only Republican in the race who has a better than 50% chance of beating Barack “health care mandate” Obama in the general election.

You can read my thoughts on Huntsman here: Huntman’s path to victory and Huntsman’s primary dilemma

You can donate to his campaing here: Quit bitching and click here to donate to the guy who can beat Obama

And if you think Romney or Newt or Paul or Santorum are the choice, go ahead and vote for ‘em. And get used to keep on saying “President Obama” for four more years.

Now put away your warped sense of what you think a good Republican is, and start thining about Jon Huntsman for President.

Chris Ingram is the president and founder of 411 Communications a corporate and political communications firm, and publisher of Irreverent View. Ingram is a frequent pundit on Fox News and CNN, and has written opinion columns for the Washington Times, UPI, and National Review online. He is the Republican political analyst for Bay News 9, the only 24 hour all news channel in Florida’s largest media market. The opinions expressed here are those of author and do not represent the views of Bay News 9. E-mail him at: Chris@IrreverentView.com.

Please feel free to submit a comment on our blogs. By posting a comment you acknowledge reading and following the terms and conditions of posting found here.  You may also submit a comment by e-mail. If you e-mail a comment you consent to your comment and name being posted on the Irreverent View website. If you wish to remain completely anonymous, please state so in your e-mail.

The Tampa Tribune

Published January 1, 2012

Republican or Democrat, you can’t argue with the fact that our politicians in Washington are failing the American people.

The other day the GOP finally caved to the realization that playing politics with middle-class tax relief was a losing proposition.

Meanwhile, the Democrats and President Obama play politics with our nation’s energy dependence (or lack thereof) by denying the application of an oil company to build an oil pipeline from Alberta, Canada, to refineries in Texas.

Both parties are complicit in excessive government spending, a complicated tax code that benefits special interests, and a complete lack of responsibility about the staggering national debt — currently at $15 trillion. To understand how bad the debt situation is consider this: You would have to spend $1 million a day for the next 2,739 years to blow through a trillion dollars. Now multiply by 15.

The only thing the two parties generally agree on (albeit behind closed doors) is that they need to maintain the status quo so they can continue to get re-elected.

Of course we voters are to blame because most of us would in fact punish those politicians who show leadership by raising our taxes, cutting our benefits or not “giving” us the largess we feel so entitled to. The American way used to be about sacrifice, personal responsibility and hard work. Today it’s about “what’s the government going to do for me next?”

To read the full column in today’s Tampa Tribune click here.

Chris Ingram is the president and founder of 411 Communications a corporate and political communications firm, and publisher of Irreverent View. Ingram is a frequent pundit on Fox News and CNN, and has written opinion columns for the Washington Times, UPI, and National Review online. He is the Republican political analyst for Bay News 9, the only 24 hour all news channel in Florida’s largest media market. The opinions expressed here are those of author and do not represent the views of Bay News 9. E-mail him at: Chris@IrreverentView.com.

Please feel free to submit a comment on our blogs. By posting a comment you acknowledge reading and following the terms and conditions of posting found here.  You may also submit a comment by e-mail. If you e-mail a comment you consent to your comment and name being posted on the Irreverent View website. If you wish to remain completely anonymous, please state so in your e-mail.

‘Twas months before Christmas and all through the town

 Not a preacher was stirring, not even a church mouse;

The propswere stored in the attic with care,

In hopes that city permits would soon be there;

The congregation were nestled all snug in their pews,

While visions of the annual Nativity danced in their head;

But atheists with their lawyers, and liberals with their flap,

Had just filed paper work to ruin all that

When out at the public park there arose such a clatter,

I sprang from the church to see what was the matter.

Away to City Hall I flew like a flash,

To find atheist activists were on the warpath.

They filed their petitions so everyone would know

Their interpretation of the Constitution we should all follow,

When, what to my wondering eyes should appear,

But the absence of Christianity this time of year!

The CNN.com article that has inspired this begins: “Every Christmas for the past 60 years Nativity scenes have dominated two blocks of a park on bluffs overlooking the ocean in Santa Monica, California.” 

It appears one more Christian public display has been toppled by activist atheists who believe it is there mission in life to eradicate any public display of Christian religious symbolism.  I specifically site Christianity because, in that very same town of Santa Monica, a Chanukah Menorah is able to occupy some real estate atop a public building.  But according to this crop of atheists the presence of Nativities in public is a direct violation of their civil rights which must be stopped.  Maybe these Santa Monica Nativity scenes melt the faces of any atheist who looks into baby Jesus’ eyes, just as the Ark did in the movie Raiders of the Lost Ark. One atheist went as far as to say he has been discriminated against long enough.

As if the mere existence of religious symbols is a form of discrimination.  Funny how liberals insist on tolerance for others unless it’s something they themselves do not want to tolerate.

I mention the existence of the public Menorah only to suggest that these atheists- and frankly most atheists- are not against religion they are against Christianity.  Otherwise they would be more consistent in there argument against public displays of
religion.   They hide behind their bastardized interpretation of the First Amendment which in its entirety reads:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Many people truncate this amendment into two commonly repeated phrases freedom of speech and freedom of religion. In the past two decades liberals and atheists, with the help of activist judges, have effectively replaced “freedom of religion” with “freedom from religion.” The latter of which would be the only way public displays of religion could remotely be considered a violation of a civil right.

To be clear, I didn’t go to law school but I have stayed at a fair amount of Holiday Inn Expresses in my life, so I believe I am uniquely qualified to comment on the First Amendment.  “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof…” when viewed from the vantage point of our forefathers, means exactly what it says.  No hair-splitting interpretation necessary.  In America you can practice whatever religion you choose AND there will be no religion  sanctioned by the government.  Meaning you would not be coerced into practicing a state religion (e.g. The Church of  England).

Many court complaints have suggested the allowance of uniquely Christian symbolism on public property IS an implied form of the government established religion.  I say poppycock to that because that would suggest that anything the government does is to be seen as an endorsement.  It would be as if Ford brought a lawsuit against the government that it’s stake in GM is the
government forcing consumers to buy GM cars.  And I seriously doubt I’ll be purchasing a $500 toilet seat just because
the government does.

What is worse is the attack on Christianity during one of its most important holidays has ventured into the ridiculous.  We tap dance around the subject using all sorts of code words like Winter Break, Winter Pageant, Holiday Tree, and Seasonal Flu.  I have to ask why must a Christmas Tree be a Holiday Tree but a Menorah is not a Holiday Candelabra.

In reality I’m not easily offended by Happy Holidays et al.  I’m not Bill O’Reilly looking to pick a fight with anyone who dares utter a Happy Holidays. If Best Buy wants to say Happy Holidays to sell plasma TVs, it has a First Amendment Right to do so without prejudice.  Of course without Christmas there would be no Black Friday.  The wise men made sure this would this be a “December to Remember” for retailers and Lexus by bringing gold, frankincense, myrrh (whatever myrrh is).  But when people go out of their way to be Scrooges for no other reason then they think their belief system is superior, well I find that discriminatory and against MY First Amendment Rights.

Shamus McConomy is a resident of the Tampa Bay Area where he has spent his career as a lender to small and medium sized businesses.  He holds a Bachelor of Science in Finance from the University of South Florida and an M.B.A. from the University of Tampa.  E-mail him at: samcconomy@yahoo.com

Please feel free to submit a comment on our blogs. By posting a comment you acknowledge reading and following the terms and conditions of posting found here.  You may also submit a comment by e-mail. If you e-mail a comment you consent to your comment and name being posted on the Irreverent View website. If you wish to remain completely anonymous, please state so in your e-mail.

The Tampa Tribune

Published December 13, 2011

Congress’ failure to figure out the budget mess means the hole we’ve been digging for decades isn’t any closer to getting filled in. The mess that has been created by the politicians in Washington reminds me of a recent addition to my household.

Last year my wife had the bright idea to add a second dog to our already crowded house of three kids and a cat. She got me to agree to this by promising to help take care of the dog, including picking up the poop, walking it and taking responsibility for various other things that come with pet ownership.

Since in the previous month she had mentioned something about having another baby, this seemed like a good compromise to help her meet her maternal needs.

I should have known better than to expect her to actually take care of the dog. We’ve had our cat for 14 years, and she hasn’t changed its litter box since she was pregnant with our first child more than eight years ago.

To read the full column in today’s Tampa Tribune click here.

Chris Ingram is the president and founder of 411 Communications a corporate and political communications firm, and publisher of Irreverent View. Ingram is a frequent pundit on Fox News and CNN, and has written opinion columns for the Washington Times, UPI, and National Review online. He is the Republican political analyst for Bay News 9, the only 24 hour all news channel in Florida’s largest media market. The opinions expressed here are those of author and do not represent the views of Bay News 9. E-mail him at: Chris@IrreverentView.com.

Please feel free to submit a comment on our blogs. By posting a comment you acknowledge reading and following the terms and conditions of posting found here.  You may also submit a comment by e-mail. If you e-mail a comment you consent to your comment and name being posted on the Irreverent View website. If you wish to remain completely anonymous, please state so in your e-mail.

Father must I go to work?
 No, my lucky son.
We’re living now on Easy Street.
 On dough from Washington.

We’ve left it up to Uncle Sam,
 So don’t get excercised.
Nobody has to give a damn–
 We’ve all been subsidized.

Photo of Pres. Truman and Pres. Obama. The more things change...the more they stay the same.

But if Sam treats us all too well
 And feeds us milk and honey,
Please, daddy, tell me what the hell
 He’s going to use for money.

Don’t worry, bub, there’s not a hitch
 In this here noble plan–
He simply soaks the filthy rich
 And helps the common man.

But, father, won’t there come a time
 When they run out of cash
And we have left them not a dime
 When things will go to smash?

My faith in you is shrinking, son,
 You nosy little brat;
You do too damn much thinking, son,
 To be a Democrat.

While the preceding is applicable in the class warfare President Obama and congressional Democrats are currently engaging in, take heart in noting it was entered into the Congressional Record in November  of 1949 by Representative Clarence J. Brown (R-OH). It seems the Democrats’ free-spending ways, general fiscal irresponsibility, and class-warfare tactics have deep roots.

Click here to view a PDF of the poem and report of it being in the Congressional Record from the November 4, 1949 New York Daily News.

Irreverent View would like to thank John Foster of Tampa for sharing the Daily News article.

Chris Ingram is the president and founder of 411 Communications a corporate and political communications firm, and publisher of Irreverent View. Ingram is a frequent pundit on Fox News and CNN, and has written opinion columns for the Washington Times, UPI, and National Review online. He is the Republican political analyst for Bay News 9, the only 24 hour all news channel in Florida’s largest media market. The opinions expressed here are those of author and do not represent the views of Bay News 9. E-mail him at: Chris@IrreverentView.com.

Please feel free to submit a comment on our blogs. By posting a comment you acknowledge reading and following the terms and conditions of posting found here.  You may also submit a comment by e-mail. If you e-mail a comment you consent to your comment and name being posted on the Irreverent View website. If you wish to remain completely anonymous, please state so in your e-mail.

(Editor’s note: The following was submitted by my friend Victor Epstein, a veteran newspaper reporter. Victor, like a lot of professional journalists is out of a job due to the economy and the newspaper industry still trying to figure out how to make money in the age of Twitter and The Daily Show. His column focuses on how ridiculous it is that Chelsea Clinton was recently hired by NBC News – and his (understandable) frustrations. But the column doesn’t stop there. It gives an insightful first-person account of what it is like to be a journalist with real world accounts about covering the news. Those examples demonstrate how being a “real journalist” translates into better reporting and story telling. The column is longer than what we normally publish here, but if you’re interested in the news and journalism as I am, you wont be able to stop reading it.  — Chris Ingram, Publisher, Irreverent View)

By Victor Epstein

A pair of headlights cut through the darkness behind me on a two-lane road outside Claxton, Ga., one night in 1994. They closed swiftly on my pickup before matching my speed at about 200 yards.

That almost never happens on country roads. Cars either pass you or you pass them. They don’t race toward you before trailing  from a fixed distance. So, I slowed down to protect the identity of my source – a black high school student who had been warned to stop dating a white classmate in a town plagued by institutionalized racism.

The mystery car drew closer each time I downshifted, before matching my speed. We drove along in this manner for a stretch at 150 yards, then 100, then 50. We were separated by less than 10 feet by the time I brought my pickup to a complete halt.

The vehicle now visible in my rear-view mirror was a Claxton police cruiser.

I stared at the embarrassed officer for what seemed like an eternity, the cruiser’s headlights illuminating my face on the otherwise empty and unlit road. Finally, he floored the gas pedal and hurtled past me, face locked forward as I shouted “go tell your buddies back at the station about this one.”

I found myself recalling that formative experience from my time as a cub reporter last night as I pondered the announcement that NBC had hired former first daughter Chelsea Clinton as a special news correspondent. It’s the latest hiring of a child from a prominent political family in the contracting news industry. The field I’ve devoted my life to never seems to run out of room for them, even as thousands of veteran reporters are being kicked to the curb.

Photo: Chelsea Clinton

You may not read it anywhere but here, but I guarantee you that beleaguered reporters around this nation are quietly seething with resentment over Chelsea’s latest “accomplishment.” There is such a thing as receiving too much damn help from mummy and daddy.

An isolated incident? Sorry, no.

This kind of caper by the upper crust is becoming the norm rather than the exception as politicians and their kids take over the  national-level media. Journalism objectivity is being transformed into partisan political cheerleading by these entitled opportunists, much as the neutral stock analysis that once characterized Wall Street was transformed into advertising during the dot-com bubble of the late 1990s.

A news industry that’s supposed to serve the common man as a watchdog over the rich and powerful is itself being remade into  a tool of rampant favoritism and political cronyism. In a word – propaganda.

You won’t see these silver spoons working for a small-town newspaper or TV station. The 1% and their children don’t pay their dues in the sticks like the rest of us.

That’s strictly for the little people – the forlorn 99% that the Occupy Wall Street movement is always talking about. We’re the “suckers” who still cling to the fiction that we live in a meritocracy where even the lowest-born among us may speak truth to power without fear and rise above our humble beginnings by being honorable, talented, honest, industrious and passionate about our chosen trade.

Even more disgraceful is the fact that Chelsea will have all of the rights of free speech that are now routinely denied to most rank-and-file reporters in the increasingly repressive news industry. In the name of “objectivity,” we’re discouraged from expressing opinions on anything. Many times, we’re not even allowed to champion the truth over disinformation.

Personal opinions in the news business are now reserved largely for the stars of the newsroom and the rich. Increasingly, they’re one and the same. The rest of us are equipment. We’re the laptops and the keyboards.

The painful truth is that every time some child of the self-appointed American aristocracy gets handed a plum job like this it’s a setback for decent working people.

There are literally thousands of real journalists who are holding off on starting families until they can secure the kind of job that was just handed to Chelsea on a silver platter. There are also thousands of other proven journalists – just like me – who are scrambling to remain in an industry we love after being idled in one of the mass layoffs undertaken to sustain media profit growth the past 20 years.

The U.S. news industry shed 14,106 of its 55,715 jobs from 1990 to 2010, according to the annual employment census by the American Society of Newspaper Editors. But that apparent 25% decline is only part of the story.

The real decline is actually 40% once you adjust the number of professional journalists for our nation’s rapid population growth. The U.S. population expanded to 310 million in 2010 from 250 million in 1990, dropping the number of professional journalists per million Americans to 134 from 223.

However, there is never any reduction in the number of newsroom jobs grabbed up by the silver spoons. It doesn’t matter if it’s the worst of times for the rest of us. For them, it’s always the best of times.

This isn’t even about journalism for Chelsea. It’s about building her face and name recognition without paying for ads as she pursues a political career. I’m sure Hillary is thinking that if she can’t be this nation’s first female president, maybe Chelsea can.

Roll the clock back to September of 1987. I’m sitting in another car outside the old Bronx House of Detention with my dad, who died a few years back. Unlike the parents of the silver spoons, he actually served in combat in the defense of this nation – crash-landing in occupied France aboard a glider on D-Day, surviving the Battle of the Bulge and the battle to cross the Elbe River under fire, and liberating death camps in Germany during World War II.

We were looking up at the imposing prison in the South Bronx, which towers above 151st street like a huge yellow cinderblock, when he cleared his throat.

“Are you sure you want to do this,” dad asked me, lifting a gray eyebrow in concern.

I was still living at home at age 22, but I was about to become the first student-journalist to conduct a jailhouse interview in the New York City Corrections system. My subject was Larry Davis, who had been arrested for shooting six New York City police officers in a 1986 gun battle.

Davis was known for robbing drug dealers and working as a confidential informant for police. He was a suspect in seven murders at the time.

The New York Post and New York Daily News had been running photos that made the burly Davis look like he was 6-feet tall. He actually was built more along the lines of a 5-foot-4-inch fireplug.

I didn’t recognize him when he finally entered the crowded cubicle farm for our meeting in a pair of non-prescription glasses.

“Where’s Larry,” I said impatiently, looking down at him.

“I’m Larry,” Davis said.

“You’re Larry,” I asked. “Come on. You’re can’t be Larry – Larry’s taller.”

“Everybody says that,” Davis said with a shrug.

Clinton is not the first unqualified silver spoon from the professional political class to be handed a plum news job. There are tons of them. Maria Shriver started the trend in the late 80s when she landed a network news gig seemingly out of nowhere.

The current crop of media silver spoons includes Meghan McCain, daughter of Sen. John McCain, who is a contributor to MSNBC; Chris Cuomo, son of former New York State Gov. Mario Cuomo and a correspondent at ABC; and Jenna Bush Hager (left), daughter of President George W. Bush and a correspondent for NBC’s “Today” show.

Hager’s professional qualifications?

Your guess is as good as mine.

Either she was hired on the strength of her status as a teacher’s aide and reading coordinator, or she was hired because her daddy is the former head of the Republican political machine. Curiously, her first big accomplishment was landing an interview with Bill Clinton, the former head of the Democratic political machine. How much do you want to bet that one of Chelsea’s first big “gets” will be a similar interview with George W. Bush?

Apparently, it’s not enough for the Bush and Clinton families that have wrecked this nation the past 20 years to give their children every possible advantage of money, place and power. They still feel compelled to stick a thumb on the battered scales of workplace meritocracy.

This kind of over-the-top coddling makes you wonder how smart these kids really are if they still can’t compete with the rest of us on a level playing field, even with their fancy prep school educations and all the other advantages of being born into a wealthy family. It’s either that or the public school system must be a helluva lot better than we thought.

Which brings us to Chris Cuomo. He decided to make a career in journalism after growing bored in the legal profession. However, unlike you and I, Cuomo didn’t have to start his news career at a tiny TV station in Montana where he had to carry his own camera. And he didn’t have to build his resume at a tiny daily newspaper without employee health insurance.

I still bear the scar (right) from a laceration suffered while changing the oil in my car in 1992 when I was working for the Pekin Daily Times - a small daily outside Peoria, Ill. I couldn’t afford $440 for the ambulance, much less $160 to put the stitches in and another $160 to take them out. Not when I was making $15,000 a year and paying $300 a month in student loans.

So, I fixed it up myself. Badly.

It’s a safe bet that most of you have been faced with similar choices. Chelsea and her fellow silver spoons have not.

Cuomo started right out as a political analyst for Fox, CNBC, MSNBC and CNN in New York City. To his credit, he’s done some fine journalism. However, we’ll never know how many of his accomplishments are due to him and how many are due to his famous daddy, because every door was opened for Chris.

You can’t really measure a person until you see how they function in adversity. So, we don’t know who Chris Cuomo really is. Neither does he.

What adversity has Cuomo endured? I don’t count leaving the legal profession. And let’s face facts – if Cuomo had been a member of the 99% he could have never done it.

Why? Because the kind of student loans that the 99% are saddled with in law school don’t permit such capricious changes of heart.

Want to know what Meghan McCain’s qualifications are for one of the handful of network television news jobs? Me too.

Like a lot of aspiring journalists the 27-year-old decided to try her hand at writing a blog. Unlike the rest of us, her blog is published by The Daily Beast – an international news organization that’s a destination job for most journalism lifers. I can’t even get them to look at my resume, and I broke the iconic story of Hurricane Katrina.

Photo: Meghan McCain

That McCain blog must really be amazing, right? Sadly, it’s not. See for yourself.

The highlight of each column is the introductory paragraph written by the editors of The Daily Beast. Without them, readers wouldn’t even know what message McCain was trying to share. The basic story structure needed to communicate that information just isn’t there.

McCain also has a Twitter account. That’s where she chose to respond to the suggestion by one journalist that she had “never accomplished anything.” According to Gawker, McCain “posted an expletive-ridden and atrociously spelled” response which ticked off a series of very suspect accomplishments. They included tutoring kids at church, delivering flowers to hospital patients, internships at Newsweek and Saturday Night Live, and the erroneous claim to have written the first blog in history to document a presidential campaign in 2008.

Apparently, research is for the little people. Not little rich girls. Otherwise, McCain might have known that the first blog to document a presidential campaign was the “Official Kerry-Edwards Campaign Blog,” in 2004, per Gawker.

It was 1994 and I was standing across the street from the headquarters of Bland Farms in Glennville, Ga., at 7:40 a.m. in a crowd of migrant laborers  I had an 8 a.m. interview with Chief Executive Officer Delbert Bland and was using the remaining time to gather quotes from the migrants camped in their cars.

Delbert’s daddy Ray had other ideas.

He skidded his pickup to a halt beside us and leveled a double-barreled shotgun at me through the driver’s side door. The holes at the end of the weapon looked huge. The migrants evaporated.

Ray didn’t identify himself. He shouted “who the hell are you,” insisted I get in the vehicle and drove me to his son’s office. Then he marched me past the startled ladies in the call center – shotgun still cradled in his arms.

Bland Farms, which now accounts for a third of all Vidalia Onion production, had just been fined nearly $600,000 by the U.S. Department of Labor for assorted labor violations. Inside the office, Delbert asked me what the hell was going on. I said that’s exactly what I wanted to know.

“Are you going to tell me you didn’t know anything about that?” Delbert asked, slamming a copy of that day’s Savannah Morning News down on the table in front of me. It was open to the editorial page.

Staring up at me was a powerful editorial and cartoon (left) depicting the Vidalia onion industry’s exploitation of migrant workers.

The various newsroom departments don’t always communicate as they should and the wonderful, albeit poorly timed, editorial spread was as big a surprise to me as it was to the Blands.

I remember thinking “this is friggin great,” and then actually saying “this is terrible – this is exactly why you need to sit down with me and get your side of the story out there.”

I landed that story.

All of which brings us back to Chelsea Clinton.

What entitles her to avoid paying the same kind of dues that those of us in the 99% routinely shoulder to claw our way into the news industry? I’m willing to bet the bank I’d beat her 99 times out of 100 if we ever went head-to-head on a competitive beat. The one is for mummy and daddy’s friends.

Chelsea’s already had every possible advantage. Why does she merit even more?

Is it because of her lifelong commitment to journalism? No. Chelsea had never been a journalist and never exhibited any professional interest in the field until she decided to pursue a career in the family business – elected politics. She’s notorious for refusing to answer reporter’s questions, even for stories about her new reporting job.

If I could ask her a single question it would be “what in the world makes you better than me and the people like me in journalism? We’ve fought hard for the little we have, devoted ourselves to public service, paid our dues and made personal sacrifices to be in this field.

What have you ever done, besides be born?”

Sorry, playing dress-up at pricey charity balls doesn’t count in my book. Neither does running the family charity.

Like her mom, Chelsea doesn’t need to pay her dues at the local level in elected politics. She’s big-time. Mom started right out as a U.S. Senator and Chelsea is probably going to start right out as a U.S. Representative, most likely by being appointed to someone’s unfinished term.

There won’t be any school boards or development boards for Chelsea. She probably won’t even need to unseat an incumbent to win her place on the pay-to-play gravy train.

Chelsea has been a professional student most of her adult life. She’s never been either a journalist or a journalism student. She attended an exclusive private prep school, just like all the silver spoons in this story. Apparently, the public school system their fancy parents cobbled together for the rest of us wasn’t good enough for their own offspring.

Chelsea pursued her undergraduate education at the very expensive and very prestigious Stanford University. She went on to earn master’s degrees from the very expensive and prestigious University College, Oxford, and from the very prestigious and very expensive Columbia University. She is currently pursuing a doctoral degree at the very prestigious and very expensive New York University.

Somehow, I don’t see her struggling to repay any student loans. By contrast, I spent 16 years eating lunches at Sam’s Club and having peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and ramen noodles for dinner as I paid off my college loans.

Then again, I ain’t no Senator’s son and I ain’t no president’s daughter either.

Chelsea’s supposed to be somehow deserving of this gig because she’s better than me? I don’t think so. In fact, I don’t think she could walk a day in my shoes.

It was Sept. 6, 2005, and Ray Couture and I had just about finished the gruesome body count inside St. Rita’s Nursing Home in hard-hit Chalmette, La. We’d found the corpses of 15 elderly Americans in various states of decay.

It was a horrendous experience. The worst bodies looked like they’d been carved from butter after floating in the floodwaters for eight summer days. Some still had catheters hanging out of them.

Photo: After the storm.

It took us an hour to perform the room-to-room search in the dark and flooded facility. The wooden doors had expanded in their jambs and we had to shoulder them open without slipping and falling into the stew of decomposing tissue, feces and swamp mud that covered the floor. Yellow streams emanated from the bodies – a characteristic I would later learn is typical of decomposing fat.

Ray and I were in the lobby, where a few beams of sunlight illuminated the brown high water mark all around the big room. An  indignant voice broke the silence.

“This ain’t right,” the voice said, dripping venom. “These guys never had a friggin’ chance and that ain’t right.”

Ray was staring back at me in slack-jawed amazement when I suddenly realized the outraged voice was my own. The “me” I keep penned up inside. The “me” that isn’t a detached, professional observer of the human condition. The real “me” who has opinions and knows each corpse inside St. Rita’s was someone’s grandmother or grandfather.

It was also the me that knows that leadership is done by example and that elites are expected to get down in the muck with the rest of us when there’s hard work to be done. Chelsea Clinton and her fellow silver spoons haven’t done that.

The painful truth is that if they can’t suffer along with the rest of us, they’re not fit to lead.

We work hard in the beleaguered middle class, without benefit of the huge financial safety nets that the Bush and Clinton clans have created for themselves.

We’re suffering through the worst economic climate since The Great Depression and we deserve to be led by someone like ourselves. A self-made man or woman. Someone who knows what it means to get screwed over for doing the right thing. Someone who knows what it’s like to go to bed hungry, patch up their own wounds, and slog through this American life without
a safety net.

The author. Photo credit: Daniel Acker/Bloomberg News

That’s the essence of true representative government.

Sorry Chelsea, you and your fellow silver spoons are not ready to lead me and hardworking Americans like me. You’re not a patch on us.

But if we ever create a “House of Lords” to represent America’s self-appointed hereditary aristocracy, like the one they have in merry old England, you’ve got my vote. You’d be perfect for that.

Until then, leave me and those like me alone. If we wanted to be ruled by a hereditary aristocracy through an entrenched political machine, we’d move to North Korea.

Victor Epstein is a veteran journalist and publisher of The Cynical Times. He who has worked as a correspondent for AP, Gannett and Bloomberg News, among others. E-mail him at: victor1212@gmail.com

Please feel free to submit a comment on our blogs. By posting a comment you acknowledge reading and following the terms and conditions of posting found here.  You may also submit a comment by e-mail. If you e-mail a comment you consent to your comment and name being posted on the Irreverent View website. If you wish to remain completely anonymous, please state so in your e-mail.