Mystery over Obama’s smoking lingers as he signs anti-tobacco law
Is President Barack Obama still a smoker? Neither he nor his aides will give a straight answer.
As White House coverups go, the question hardly ranks among the most-pressing. But it came to mind yesterday when Obama signed into law sweeping new rules to restrict tobacco — without addressing his personal habit.
Paul Farhi of the Washington Post examines the matter in an article today — “Obama and The Burning Question. Tobacco Habit a Hazy Rumor Behind Official Smoke Screen.”
Farhi writes:
Super double special irony alert! President Obama signed the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act into law yesterday, hailing it in a Rose Garden ceremony as “an extraordinary accomplishment” that will “save American lives and make Americans healthier.”
Well, let’s hope so. But doesn’t “healthier” start at home? Wouldn’t this be the same President Obama who still has a little tobacco habit of his own?
It’s hard to know for sure, because everyone at the White House acts like a kid caught smoking when the subject comes up, but it appears that Obama is the first president in decades to smoke cigarettes while in office…
Later in the article:
The White House offered a little more haze 10 days ago when reporters asked press secretary Robert Gibbs for an update on the does-he-or-doesn’t-he question. Gibbs wouldn’t say exactly. “I would simply tell you I think struggling with a nicotine addiction is something that happens every day,” he replied.
And later in Farhi’s story:
The president was no more specific yesterday as he signed a bill that will further regulate the marketing and manufacturing of cigarettes, including giving the Food and Drug Administration new powers to restrict the amount of tar and nicotine. Noting that one in five teenagers leaves high school as a smoker, Obama said: “I know because I was one of those teenagers. I know how hard it can be to break this habit when it has been with you for a long time.”
For a guy with a smoking past and maybe present, Obama’s blindingly white smile made reporters wonder whether they should be focused on the coverup and not the crime. So the question hung in the air for the assembled news types, all of whom are doubtless paragons of perfect health and fitness themselves. “Mr. President, how difficult has your struggle with smoking been?” shouted CNN’s Dan Lothian from the behind the rope line, as Obama worked the sweltering Rose Garden crowd a few feet away.
Obama turned his head toward Lothian, and then returned to working the line, without offering a verbal response.
Steve Parker is the deputy managing editor for news, and oversees the Post-Dispatch's front page. STLtoday's online news editors are on his newsroom team. Parker has been at the paper since September 1980. 
Hmmm…This seems an incredibly idiotic waste of time. Did anyone ever worry about whether or not a President that signed a bill increasing a tax on alcohol drank beer or whiskey?
I don’t like Obama as the regular posters know, but this seems like a real stretch to me trying to make this out to be some kind of double-standard. Is this really what the press needs to spend their time on?
Oddly what most don’t understand is that bill was crafted by Big Tobacco. They like the bill because A) It will keep new products and competition from entering the market. B) Shields them from the billion dollar lawsuits. C) The advertising restrictions are exactly the same that have been stricken down by the Supreme Court. They will be free to advertise as they do now after a lawsuit against it is upheld. The bill is essentially a giant use less PR campaign. They can’t get rid of nicotine and if they reduce it - we have the same result as “light” cigarettes - people will smoke more.
………..If I were President, I’d be with smoking with Willie Nelson on the roof of the White House.
Tony, I don’t see how coming under FDA jurisdiction shields them from lawsuits. History is littered with examples of products that were approved or regulated by the FDA that later turned up with lingering side affects (phen-phen anyone?) and were sued out of existence…
And how would it keep new products from entering the market? It’s a regulation, not a copyright. Not that I expect a “new” product anytime soon. There hasn’t been one in a couple of hundred years…
Doesn’t add up dude.
Steve Parker-
Mystery over O’bama’s firing of 2 I.G.s lingers after he signs bill to protect I.G.s from political chicanery.
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NOW THAT’S A HEADLINE WE CAN BELIEVE IN. NO MORE “SMOKE” SCREENS. WE WANT THE STORY! WE WANT THE STORY! WE WANT THE STORY!WE WANT THE STORY! C’mon everyone, you know the chorus…
BTW-Still pushing that beholding to no party thing?
You guys are missing the point, I think. Smoking, along with having racially impure thoughts and failing to recycle, are now the great sins of our time. It just goes to show Obama does have feet of clay, after all. We’ll probably learn at some point, too, that he cheats on his wife, which will only gild his reputation as “a common man of the people.” It did wonders for Bill Clinton.
Now, if on top of his smoking it is discovered Obama does not have a recycling bin in the Oval Office, it might be time to start impeachment proceedings.
He smokes. He pretends he doesn’t. Who cares? There’s a lot he does but pretends he doesn’t.
Long gone are the days when a President could appear in public with a cigarette, and with the exception of formal occasions, with a drink/beer in hand.
More important than the carping from left & right on his smoking, is his promise to his wife and children that he would quit.
BTW -Drdb - one of the IG’s to whom you refer, Walprin, apparently interfered with investigations cf http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/06/16/AR2009061603085.html
I think Obama’s heading off to the White House garden — specifically, right near the poinsettas — to sneak a smoke. If I were the media, I’d set up the cameras right near there.
is his promise to his wife and children that he would quit.
— RHarnack
1:35 pm June 24th, 2009
That debunks the myth that he is of superior intelligence. No one makes a promise to their family that they know they can’t keep. Making campaign promises to potential voters that you don’t intend to keep is one thing. Making promises to your wife and children that you don’t intend to keep is another….and totally unacceptable.