The President took time out of his busy schedule of politicking this week to do some more politicking at a big DNC fundraiser in Portland. During his remarks, President Obama simply couldn’t resist trotting out one of his go to applause lines on climate change when he chose to poke fun at Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.) because he brought a snowball to the chamber floor earlier this year.

Inhofe had been trying to make a point about how believers in anthropogenic global warming (and the need for the government to regulate us into the ground over it) will use any dramatic weather event to bolster their claims. Their approach, as the Senator notes, is rather humorous since most of those same people scoff if skeptics point to a particularly cold winter or any other personal observations to make arguments to the contrary. The President was jumping into the same trap, though, when he decided to rev up the crowd with a few zingers. Bridget Johnson at PJ Media picked up the details.

After flying out to the ballroom of about 300 people paying $33,400 each, Obama took a dig at Inhofe.

“We’re going to have to tackle climate change. We’ve got some folks in the center right now who think because we get a snowy day, they bring in snowballs into the chambers and think that’s science,” he quipped as the audience laughed. “I’m not a scientist, but I know a lot of scientists. I can understand science. And what the science says is that our planet is warming in such a way that it is going to increase drought, and it is going to increase wildfires, and it is going to displace millions of people around this planet, and increase the severity of floods and hurricanes, and it will cost lives and it will cost our way of life, and it could affect the incredible natural bounty that Oregon represents. And that’s not the kind of America I want to pass on to our kids and our grandkids.”

“That’s why we’re taking actions through the EPA to make sure that we cut carbon pollution that’s produced from power plants. It’s the right thing do.”

I have to wonder if there is nobody on the President’s staff who ever pulls him aside after an event to say, “Um… sir? Do you realize that you just accused people of doing something and then turned around and did the exact same thing yourself in the next sentence?” Probably not.

After saying that a cold, snowy winter couldn’t possibly be germane to a discussion of long term climate trends, he immediately turned around and referenced droughts and wildfires in a clear reference to southern California. Unfortunately for the President, long before it became fashionable to blame everything on global warming, scientists had been warning us for years about the harmful effects of fire suppression efforts which have been underway since Johnson was president. If that part of the country failed to burn down naturally – as it has apparently done since long before people arrived – it builds up kindling until it’s essentially ready to explode. Further, before we started tinkering with California and its water supplies, the southern end was pretty much a desert.

But hey, don’t let that stop you, Mr. President! After all, you hang out with scientists all day. You know… scientists like Bill Nye and Neil Tyson. Just because one is a washed up host of children’s shows and the other is a cosmologist who seems a bit out of his lane when speaks about climatology, don’t let that bother you.

It’s just a footnote to the main story, but there’s also something telling about one of the President’s closing comments. Clearly he’s very proud of all the work he’s putting in.

Obama said that after all he’s accomplished in office “people say, Mr. President, no wonder you look so old.”

“And they ask you, how do you just keep at it every day?

Mr. President, no wonder you look so old. It must be tiring talking to Bill Nye and Neil Tyson all day.