Pres. Obama Should Push Back On Questions About His Smoking
I’ve noted before that the DC media has had much fun poking at President Barack Obama about how much he still smokes and how I think the media ought to stay out of the President’s private life (or do they plan on asking what he eats each day, if he drinks soda pop and whether he and the First Lady have sex?) and stick to far more important questions.
But, no. During yesterday’s press conference a reporter who identified herself as a former smoker went after President Obama about smoking. If I’ve watched one trend over my 15 years as a reporter, it’s that once a media person stops drinking or smoking (or whatever), they become most virulent in attacking that which they once did. For instance, I know of recovering alcoholics in the press corps who will go hammer-and-tong on homeless housing programs where chronic inebriates are allowed to drink, even though there’s good evidence that such programs are helpful, simply because the method of stopping drinking that worked for them must work for one and all (no, I won’t get into any names here). You’d think their editors would be smart enough and attentive enough to questions of unfair bias to assign such stories to clearer minds, but when it comes to that perceived to be a vice all those old standards fall apart.
Here’s yesterday’s exchange (deep down in this transcript) between McClatchy’s Margaret Talev and President Obama:
“Q: How many cigarettes a day do you now smoke? Do you smoke alone or in the presence of other people? And do you believe the new law would help you to quit? If so, why?”
“THE PRESIDENT: Well, first of all, the new law that was put in place is not about me, it’s about the next generation of kids coming up. So I think it’s fair, Margaret, to just say that you just think it’s neat to ask me about my smoking, as opposed to it being relevant to my new law. (Laughter.) But that’s fine, I understand. It’s an interesting human — it’s an interesting human interest story.
“But I’ve said before that, as a former smoker, I constantly struggle with it. Have I fallen off the wagon sometimes? Yes. Am I a daily smoker, a constant smoker? No. I don’t do it in front of my kids, I don’t do it in front of my family, and I would say that I am 95 percent cured, but there are times where — (laughter) — there are times where I mess up. And, I mean, I’ve said this before. I get this question about once every month or so, and I don’t know what to tell you, other than the fact that, like folks who go to AA, once you’ve gone down this path, then it’s something you continually struggle with, which is precisely why the legislation we signed was so important, because what we don’t want is kids going down that path in the first place. Okay?”
If the President was once a pack-a-day smoker, then 95 percent cured would translate into something on the order of seven cigarettes a week as his current consumption (rumor has it he smokes Parliament Lights, or P-Funks as they are known), plus all that nicotine gum he reportedly chews–and the media is chipping him up about it? And asking if he smokes in front of others? Does Talev ask stupid, biased questions in front of the world? Please. I’m glad the President called Talev, clearly religious on the matter (hopefully, her bureau chief chewed her ass out afterwards), out for messing with him on what is fundamentally a trivial matter and a personal choice.
That said, I’m a bit tired of watching the President handle the smoking question with such selfishness (I don’t know another term to use here, but I can assure you that his smoking is not all about him). The reason the media keeps pressing him on smoking has very little to do with him per se and everything to do with a culture war over smoking and other Nanny State concerns (food, soda pop, weight, exercise, guns, etc.). Between 40 million and 50 million American adults smoke cigarettes regularly and there are millions more closet smokers out there as well. The sheer persistence of this bloc of smokers drives the anti-smoking advocacy groups (funded with billions of dollars from pharma companies, pharma-connected foundations and a huge slush fund from the Master Tobacco settlement of the 1990s) and Nanny State health departments absolutely batty. They’ve been rolling out their smoking education programs since the early-1990s (often making spurious claims about smoking), running smoking ban initiatives throughout the country (often making unscientific claims about secondhand smoke), driving up the price of cigarettes and other tobacco through their tax-loving minions in various state legislatures and the Congress and, finally, getting regulation of tobacco into the hands of the FDA. And yet 40 million to 50 million adult Americans make the choice each day to light up. (For the record, I am one of them.)
What the anti-smoking advocates want is a big symbolic victory, their grand teaching moment and they want it in the form of President Obama.
I think that the President should use the opportunity to shift the conversation from one of when is he going to quit 100 percent (from the looks of things, I’d say never) to pointing out to his occasional interrogators on the subject that the tens of millions of Americans who do smoke also have rights and that those rights are being trampled on a regular basis. I don’t even think I need to get into the housing discrimination that smokers now face across the country and that a lot of that discrimination disproportionately targets lower-income Americans and, in some cases, Americans with mental illnesses such as schizophrenia (some of the most disadvantaged Americans of all). The President ought to use questions about his smoking to point out how nutso this kind of discrimination has gotten (real world example: a friend of mine in Seattle was recently denied a new apartment due to the fact that he told the landlord he wouldn’t smoke on the property and the landlord told him that he wouldn’t rent to a smoker under any circumstances regardless of where they smoked), particularly in regards to a product that is legal (or are we going to start denying rental housing to someone who drinks a six-pack a week?). It would be really nice to hear the President go all-contrarian and community organizer on the ex-smokers who toy with him.
I think President Obama should use future questions about his smoking to make the point that, like it or not, nicotine is a stimulant, well-known as such for hundreds of years and that it does have beneficial effects (as does caffeine, as do other stimulants). The President could even use these supposed teaching moments for a teaching moment of his own and ask why if so many millions are into nicotine while the most common delivery method of said nicotine is allegedly so bad, then why hasn’t some smarty pants come up with a better, safer nicotine delivery method. I can assure you that nicotine gum is not a replacement and neither are the Swedish snus and the e-cigarettes. There is something deeply magical about a cigarette and perhaps it’s time for a federal stimulus program to find a way to replicate that magic in a more socially-acceptable form.
In other words, it’s time for President Obama to stop acting so conflicted about his own smoking and embrace it a bit more, at least psychologically, and also realize that the game is far bigger than his own smoking and that it speaks to the concerns, in all directions, of many millions of Americans who smoke and are feeling quite put upon these days.
It sure would be a hell of a lot simpler than figuring out what tone to strike on Iran, dealing with the economy or engineering a victory on health care reform.
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