Just out of curiosity...how many "Obama smokes" threads have there been on DU to date?

[Human Torch]

...because I'd certainly hate to throw another one on the pile...

:evilgrin:

Barack Obama's revelation that he is thinking about a 2008 run for president set off a predictable flurry of prognostications this week. Politics-watchers have speculated about how the electorate would react to everything from his youth to his pigmentation to his acknowledgement that he had messed around with marijuana and "maybe a little blow." But a far more interesting, if less legally dicey, bullet point was buried in a few of the recent stories about the Illinois senator's ambitions: Obama is a cigarette smoker.

In a different time, or a different spot on the socioeconomic totem pole, it might seem a lot weirder for an ambitious pol to admit snorting cocaine than to acknowledge struggling with nicotine. But, among the healthy living smart-set types who represent the elite of both the Democratic Party and the American meritocracy, smokers are about as common as guys with mustaches. I'd venture to say youthful coke-dabblers probably outnumber adult smokers among Obama's fellow 1980s Harvard law students.

Not that any of this means Obama's tobacco news will hurt him in politics. To the contrary: In an age when too many politicians come off as blow-dried confections whose every decision is based on some calculus of future advancement, a public image can actually be helped by the occasional evidence of vice--at least the variety of it that doesn't involve interns, pages, or choked mistresses. Maureen Dowd wrote on Saturday that the smoking habit was an example of how the senator was "intriguingly imperfect," a description that was never applied to the likes of Al Gore of John Kerry. Actuarially foolish and hopelessly out of fashion, it is a behavior that, at least in an overachiever like Obama, seems to assuage our national discomfort with overt ambition. How much of a striver can he be if he's also a smoker?

...

Obama is not the only smoker to gain authenticity points by copping to this most déclassé of American vices. News that Laura Bush was a smoker--and speculation that the she still puffs away while immersed in the occasional Dostoyevsky tome--is a staple of the glowing press coverage that celebrates the first lady's uncalculated, unpretentious, unpolitical style: Upon being introduced to her future mother-in-law, Laura Bush allegedly showed her non-Washingtonian chops by responding to a question about what she did for a living by saying "I read, I smoke, and I admire."

http://www.rawstory.com/news/2006/Laura_to_future_motherinlaw_I_read_1120.html

[Drum]

1. I didn't think that they were addressing his smoking

...of tobacco....

:shrug:

[Human Torch]

2. I wondered, because the DU threads have been vicious and rampant...

...as an ex-smoker (for three years now) I listen to the debate with both ears, but the Raw Story (actually from New Republic) piece stating that "Smoking is being employed by some politicos--including Barack Obama and Laura Bush-as a means of humanizing themselves to voters, according to a piece that appeared in the October issue of The New Republic" struck me as a little odd.

:patriot:

[Drum]

3. yes, it is odd...

but I've become used to "smoking" being used for all sorts of agendae. :(

[beaconess]

4. I can't imagine that Obama feels the need to "humanize" himself to anyone

and, even if he did, there are plenty of ways he could do that besides smoking.

Sounds to me like he just has a nasty habit, like lots of other people do.

[Warpy]

5. As long as he doesn't smoke near me in an

enclosed space, I can't condemn him any more than I can condemn the First Lady. It's a hell of an addiction usually started by ignorant teenagers who want to rebel and look cool.

Just keep it away from me indoors and we'll get along just fine.

[daninthemoon]

6. If he smokes cigs, he's really gotta stop. Nasty habit that invites

dis-respect.

[BonnieJW]

9. And they stink!!!!

People who smoke stink. Any smoker who denies that has never had the unfortunate and unpleasant experience of getting a whiff of themselves as they pass by.

[tigereye]

7. ""I read, I smoke, and I admire."

actually that sounds like my mom. She has cut down on her cigs, though. I don't agree with those who give Laura so much shit, personally.

I suppose for many of we reformed smokers, it's a sign of lack of health awareness, though.

[Caution]

8. Anyone who bases their vote on whether someone smokes or not

has a screw loose.

[wisteria]

10. I wonder what type of image that sets for younger people? n/t

[REP]

15. Who Gives a Flying Fuck?

You think kids start smoking because a POLITICIAN does? For fuck's sake!!!

[jaxx]

11. LOL when there is nothing else.

Who cares if he smokes?

[ms liberty]

12. Jackie Kennedy was a chain smoker her whole life...

The only time she didn't smoke was when she was in public, where she could be photographed or filmed.

[Withywindle]

13. Oooo, how many flames can we condense into one thread here...

:popcorn:


I seem to remember reading something about how he was trying to quit two years ago. And I think there's something in his first book (written more than 10 years ago) about trying to quit.

So many people seem to think quitting is so easy. Ha, I know more than one person who's successfully kicked heroin and/or cocaine but not nicotine. It's entirely possible to believe someone could be ambitious and smart and strong-willed enough to be a law professor, a best-selling author, a Senator, and maybe the first Black POTUS--and STILL not be successful at quitting smoking.

[Patsy Stone]

14. Well you know

If he smokes, he clearly can't be the president of DU.
Also, I hope we don't find out he eats meat or drives a gasoline powered vehicle, because we'll definitely break up with him over that. :popcorn:

[MrSlayer]

16. It's irrelevant.

Knowing that he smokes doesn't change my opinion of him one iota. It's a non-issue.