TAHOE CITY, Calif. – A few weeks ago I told the editor I would stay away from political topics for the foreseeable future but the news these last few months has been impossible to resist, it’s been so unbelievably loony, like a good cartoon, but with a valuable lesson.

So get ready to hit your political correctness button, because here goes.

Let me say emphatically, and with obvious frustration and anger in my voice, “What difference does it make, at this point, whether this long stretch of almost no snow was caused by a surfing video in Hawaii, the Daron Rahlves Banzai Tour or a drought skillfully planned in advance by our extremely radical snow god?” (To paraphrase Hillary Clinton).

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Well, I’ll tell you what difference it makes, oh great and wise world leader. It makes all the difference in the world to life in the Tahoe Basin. And, oh powerful and magnificent Oz hiding behind the curtain, if it makes no difference what caused it, we won’t be able to keep it from happening again, will we? Which you said you want to do.

I am stunned Hillary Clinton didn’t think of that before her little tantrum on Capitol Hill, or at least get an answer like that from one of those quick-witted senators after her outburst during the hearing about the deadly attack against our consulate in Benghazi.

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In politics, as in the ski industry, we are stuck with what we’ve got. We like to think we have control over the weather, but we don’t, so all we can do is be happy with what we have, which is easy as long as the snow is white and it doesn’t get too warm, and as long as each political party gets to take turns making the same terrible decisions the previous administration made, decisions they said they’d never make, and do the same dirty work this dangerous world demanded of their predecessors.

We should all be experts by now at making do with, and enjoying, what we have. Some of us rely on the luck of the Irish, an imaginary girlfriend, or the celebrity wisdom of Chris Rock who, jokingly or not – it was hard to tell – said that the president and first lady are the boss, like our mom and dad, and we should listen to them. That makes sense. We can all relate to Steve Martin’s character in that hilarious movie, what was it called, “The Jerk.”

What an inside out, upside down world we live in. At least now all the things we hated Bush for are loved, or at least ignored, now that dad is doing them.

Fortunately, ski and snowboarding conditions are still pretty darn good here, much better than the state of the union and the latest ramblings from another ineloquent spokesmen of the entertainment industry, Tony Bennett. Don’t give up your day jobs Chris and Tony. Stick to singing and acting. You both fall flat on your face when you try to tell it like it is.

If you didn’t catch Chris’ and Tony’s comments, you didn’t miss anything. Hillary’s little outburst, well, that’s another story. She’s supposed to be smarter than that. She must have left her thinking cap overseas. And Tony left his heart on his sleeve, God love him.

But I can’t blame Hillary, Tony or Chris. They are only human. They can’t control world events, or their mouths all the time any more than I can, no matter how smart they are.

And we can’t control how much snow falls. If you’ve lived in Tahoe long you know that we can always depend on the white gold to be undependable, like world leaders.

I’d be just as frustrated as Hillary was, and losing my cool too, if I were in her position.

It’s a free country. They can say whatever they want. Like golf pro Phil Mickelson. He made a public apology for his personal comments related to California’s high taxes.

If free speech is so wonderful, why are we always apologizing for it?

Don’t apologize for being human like everybody else, or you’ll be apologizing forever.

Bob Sweigert is a Sierra Sun columnist, published poet, former college instructor and ski instructor. He has a B.A. and an M.A.T. from Gonzaga University. He has lived at Lake Tahoe for 30 years.