Now that Obama’s been elected, the dumbjournalists have decided to take the gloves off and really grill him about his shortcomings. This would be admirable, except that the pressing question for the dumbjournalists is how Obama can occasionally smoke a cigarette and still have the moral foundation to lead our country. Yes, by his own admission, Obama used to smoke and still lights up occasionally. The worst-case scenario is clear: the pressures of the Oval Office will lead him back into regular smoking, then the occasional joint, and within three months of his inauguration, the secret service will find him huddled in a dark corner of the White House basement with a glass pipe and a crack rock he scored by selling the Washington Monument to the Japanese—exactly what my racist grandmother warned us about from the beginning.
Obama seems to think he can actually still smoke occasionally without becoming a crack addict, so maybe we’re okay. More optimistic types would like to see this story as the beginning of a more healthy popular view of smoking that acknowledges a casual smoker middle ground between anti-smoking crusader and future crack addict. As a occasional cigar smoker myself, I’m skeptical. I’m sure Barack’s a better man than I am in this regard, but were I in his position, I’d find it difficult to make it though a meeting with the American Lung Association without wanting to smoke an entire box of Padron robustos purely out of spite.
3 years ago