Just Do the Weather, Al [OPINION]

TV weather weenie Al Roker called the governor of Kentucky a "nitwit" for suggesting we are wussifying our kids by keeping them home from school on cold days.

Republican Governor Matt Bevin admitted he was being "slightly facetious” in his remarks to a local radio station yesterday. But the good preacher Al took Bevin to the woodshed on MSNBC anyway.

"By the way, I just have to say this nitwit governor in Kentucky saying that, ‘Oh, we’re weak,’ these are kids who are going to be in subzero wind chills," Roker said.

The temperature was four degrees when I got up in New Bedford this morning. The windchill was -12. I was shocked to find out that our kids had school but they did. I was glad.

Subzero wind chills are not something new. It gets cold in the winter. Sometimes it gets very cold. We learn to cope and adapt. Certainly, in locations where wind chills dropped to as low as -75 degrees, officials were right to cancel school. Parents always reserve the right to keep their kids at home anyway when the weather is an issue.

Perhaps Bevin's remarks to WHAS radio seemed a bit insensitive to some, but you've got to admit he may have a point.

“It’s better to err on the side of being safe, and I’m being only slightly facetious. But it does concern me a little bit that, in America, on this and any number of other fronts, we’re sending messages to our young people that if life is hard, you can curl up in the fetal position somewhere in a warm place and just wait until it stops being hard, and that isn’t reality. It just isn’t," Gov. Bevin said.

Al Roker ought to stick to the business of forecasting the weather and let Governor Matt Bevin deal with it when it happens.

Barry Richard is the host of The Barry Richard Show on 1420 WBSM New Bedford. He can be heard weekdays from noon to 3 p.m. Contact him at barry@wbsm.com and follow him on Twitter @BarryJRichard58. The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of the author.