Lake Shore Drive Blizzard Drivers Should Quit Whining, Says CBS's Walter Jacobson

Somebody finally said it.

With the snowstorm gone and newsrooms looking for a story, much of the media's energy in the last 24 hours has been devoted to the situation on Lake Shore Drive, in which around 900 cars (by the city's estimate) were stuck on the highway overnight during the storm.

Mayor Daley held a press conference defending the Department of Streets and Sanitation's handling of the situation. But reports kept talking to people who spent a sometimes-cold night in their cars, or who couldn't find their rides the next day after the city had towed the abandoned vehicles to clear the roadway. Even the New York Times devoted a few valuable column-inches to the outcry, headlined, "Chicago Humbled by Powerful Storm."

But yesterday on CBS's evening news, commentator Walter Jacobson had a refreshingly different point of view: quit whining.

He makes the obvious but seldom-mentioned point that there had been days of warning about this blizzard, that lakefront areas would be subjected to especially serious conditions. And it started snowing in the mid-afternoon, so it's not as though anyone who got on the highway didn't realize there was a snowstorm coming. And he tacks on another point about the feeling of entitlement on the part of lakefront North Siders to be spared of all inconvenience.

It might be a little harsh, but it had to be said.

Watch Jacobson's remarks:

(Hat-tip to Capitol Fax.)