The Iceman Cometh

Amen! "Washington Post: "As To Ice, Chicago Still Obama's Kind Of Town".

"My children's school was canceled today," Obama said, speaking to reporters before a meeting with business leaders. "Because of what? Some ice? . . . We're going to have to apply some flinty Chicago toughness to this town."

In 2001, the first of three winters I lived in Washington, DC, I innocently walked into my local grocery store one evening on my return home from work. Before me stood dozens of Washingtonians scooping up batteries, bottled water and toilet paper, with checkout lines stretching halfway up the aisles. Why? Two-to-three inches of snow was forecast for the next day. A native New Englander, I rolled my eyes and walked out.

If we lived like that here in Wisconsin -- or in my former Vermont -- the entire state would shut down for half the year. Not gonna happen.

I think President Obama is onto something. Maybe as a condition to giving Washington DC statehood, the Prez should insist on more "Chicago toughness."

In Chicago, where the President's daughters previously attended school, the schools haven't closed for weather since a 1999 ice storm.

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UPDATE: Just discovered that Huffington Post, Alexander Russo and Kevin Carey beat me to the punch on this one. Guess it takes longer for news to reach Wisconsin ... especially through all this ice and snow.