Hope and Fail

Obama to Washington: Toughen up!

President Barack Obama told folks in Washington, D.C., to toughen up over snow and ice.

After learning that schools were shut down in Washington, D.C., President Obama laughed about the capital’s inability to deal with weather.

From the Chicago Sun-Times:

“As my children pointed out, in Chicago, school is never canceled. In fact, my seven-year-old pointed out that you’d go outside for recess in weather like this. You wouldn’t even stay indoors. So it’s — I don’t know. We’re going to have to try to apply some flinty Chicago toughness to this town,” Obama said.

Bad weather rarely closes anything in Chicago. The Obama daughters’ school cancelled class, triggering Obama to stray from some planned remarks about the economy and telling Washington to learn to cope.

Here’s the whole exchange:

“So, it’s good to see you guys. Can I make a comment that is unrelated to the economy, very quickly? And it has to do with Washington. My children’s school was cancelled today because of what?

….. Some — some ice?

“… As my — as my children pointed out, in Chicago, school is never cancelled. In fact, my seven-year-old pointed out that you’d go outside for recess in weather like this. You wouldn’t even stay indoors. So it’s — I don’t know. We’re going to have to try to apply some flinty Chicago toughness to this town.”

Such a pronouncement prompted an icy response from the Washington Post, which editorialized:

“Mr Obama can make pronouncements from inside his well-shovelled bubble, but we can report that it was pretty treacherous out there in the real world,” the Post wrote in an editorial after a number of road accidents.

“School administrators who opted for closure made the right call — this time. To the Obamas, we say: Welcome to Washington, and, hey, you have it easy. At least one parent has the flexibility to work from home.”

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