Time for New Yorkers to 'Toughen Up'

So here we are, just into the second day of meteorological spring, and what happens? We get the biggest snowstorm of the last three years. The storm actually pummeled most of the east coast, from Alabama up through New England. Conditions got so bad in New York city that they closed their schools for the first time in 11 years.

No word on whether President Obama plans to tell New Yorkers to "toughen up."

Yeah, I'm still bitter about that incident. And if he felt compelled to criticize how Washingtonians handle snow, it would seem only fair to do the same with New Yorkers. Failure to do so would be tantamount to discrimination.

One letter writer to the Post pointed out that 500 Chicago residents died in a 1995 heatwave. The temperatures during that weather event peaked at 107 degrees. By comparison, average July highs in Phoenix are 105 and sometimes go as high as 121. Yet you don't hear about hundreds of people in Phoenix dying. Can you imagine the uproar if someone had told Chicagoans they needed to "toughen up" and deal with the heat? The difference is that people in Phoenix are accustomed to heat, just as people in Chicago are accustomed to snow and people in Baghdad are accustomed to car bombs. Folks get used to what they have to deal with on a daily basis. For those of us here in DC, that does NOT include snow.

George Bush may have been an idiot, but at least he didn't run around criticizing us whenever it snowed.