WASHINGTON (AP) – While hundreds of thousands of people in Kentucky go without heat or electricity due to this week’s ice storm, President Barack Obama explained his indifference to the weather-related tragedy by saying “I’ve been kinda busy this week, and besides, I don’t care about white people, anyway.”

“Well, if you’re cold, just turn up the damn thermostat, you stupid cracker!.”

After the vicious winter storm swept through the state, more than half a million people Kentuckians were left shivering in the dark. “We’ve got lots of counties that do not have any communication, any heat, any power,” Steve Beshear, the state’s governor, said Wednesday.

“I can’t believe they’re closing down the state because of what, some ice?” said Obama incredulously. “When it comes to the weather, those inbred honkies don’t seem to be able to handle things. Too bad they don’t have my flinty Chicago toughness. It’s even more too bad that Kentucky used to be a slave state. I guess being afflicted by all those white-devil snow flakes is simply God’s justice.”

So far, 24 deaths have officially been blamed on the storm. That toll is expected to rise over the next few weeks, since damage was so widespread that repair crews don’t anticipate complete restoration of services until mid-February. Emergency officials said that utility workers were doing everything they could, but that there simply were too many felled lines, especially in remote areas of the state, to move any faster.

“I’d really love to help out,” said Obama, absent-mindedly scratching his face with his middle finger, “but I’ve got my hands full trying to push my stimulus package past those Pigmently-Challenged partisan hack Republicans in the Senate. Speaking of Republicans, did you know I only got 40% of the vote in yonder red state? And NOW they want me to make them a priority? I guess hillbillies really are as dumb as everyone says.”