I'd rather he'd own up to being a center-right, status quo, major change is off the table, inside-the-beltway, politician. They are more hazardous to my health than second-hand smoke.

Did you team up with Politico when writing this article? This is the same nonsense that I heard during the campaign which brought us his sad attempt at bowling. Yet tens of millions of people voted for this non-human - he must have touched them so how.

This is totally absurd.

The man, like millions of others, is an addict. He is having a hard time quitting his addiction just as millions of others have had. Quitting smoking was the most difficult thing I ever did in my life. He doesn't need to be harrassed or hounded or questioned about his addiction. I doubt anyone who has read some of my posts would disagree that I'm harder on Obama than most people, but give the man a break.

His addiction has no impact whatsoever on his performance of his duties. Therefore, it first and foremost is none of your business, my business or anyone else's business but his.

That he has to be a closet smoker to begin with is difficult and embarassing, not to mention stressful. Who thinks it a good idea to put more stress on this man that isn't necessary? Not me.

Closet smokers are, in my opinion, more miserable than open smokers for the obvious reasons but also because the game they play of not smoking when they can be seen by anyone else keeps them in a constant state of imbalance and withdrawal. This only makes a person cranky, feeling bad, short tempered, etc... Maybe if the man didn't have to closet his smoking he would have felt good enough to realize that the nation's only real hope for healthcare reform is single payer! Maybe if he wasn't constantly Jonesing for a smoke he would have realized that escalating the war in Afghanistan is an incredibly expensive boondoggle that weakens our country more than anything else. The list could go on for quite some time.

Bottom line is that Presidents are not side show freaks and they shouldn't be treated as though they were. Whether Obama is a closeted smoker or a chain smoker is something that is his business and his business alone and it should stay that way.

I don't see what the problem is, not like he has a stressful job or anything. No inherited wars, economy's humming along, peace in the Middle East and all that...

Forget smoking

Obama needs to put Bibi and Avigdor out of business soon

Lieberman's just blasted Obama for not "standing up" for the Iranian protesters..

http://www.time.com/time/world/article/
0%2C8599%2C1907071%2C00.html

ANYBODY HERE GOT A LIGHT?

Great post, nice to see you focused on important issues. I'm thinking we should have a separate "Obama smoking" page like the one suggested for Iran.

But if you've been paying attention its not just smoking. I've noticed Obama frequently eating greasy burgers and fries. All that fat goes against his campaign to get people to eat more nutritious meals. Perhaps you could do several posts on that.

Also what is his sugar intake? We know he drinks sugary sodas but what about deserts? How often does he eat donuts? How many donuts at a sitting? Does he eat his meat first? "How can you have any pudding if you don't eat your meat?" These are the type of issues we should be discussing here.

As you said, "He is too smart, too disciplined, too cute, too successful -- too wonderful in every way to be perceived as one of us." Why he's even better than Mary Poppins who is only, "Practically perfect in every way." God I love that man!!! Its time to humanize him, as if that could really be possible, by pointing out a couple of foibles since that's the only mistake he could ever possibly be criticized for and the only thing he could ever do wrong.

Well I don't want Obama to quit smoking.

If he wants to do so, perhaps he could phase out smoking, but I assume that his own creative political skills and methods of dealing with high stress and high tempo, are very much wrapped around his use of tobacco. We elected him because of those, and other assets -- not because of what he ate, drank or smoked. We liked that ability to be cool in the face of whatever was thrown at him -- be it associations with a 60's radical, a taste for the rhetoric of the Black Church mixed with Liberation Theology, or taking out of context a fairly general theory of alienation (of bitterness) on the part of the tramped on working classes in the face of deindustralization, and throwing it in his face.

So let's us not be tormenting progressive moralists. Perhaps it would be better if he could phase out smoking, but only Barack Obama knows how much of his necessary skill set needed in this White House depends on his own mode of dealing with stress.

Smoking is, if not my life, then at least my hobby. I love to smoke. Smoking is fun. Smoking is cool. Smoking is, as far as I am concerned, the entire point of being an adult. Fran Lebowitz

My second thought...

We need more actual journalists and fewer 'news generators'. News generators offer us tabloid, gossip, soap opera type garbage that wastes our time and energy.

This bs on Obama's smoking is a waste of our time...we have a couple of wars going on, plenty of real news is going on in the world.

I think he makes that little pursey lip face too often to reach perfection IMHO.

Difficulty quitting smoking may not be a 'chink in his armor', it may be a humanizing facet to his persona, and example number one of the addictive nature of tobacco and the complicity of the tobacco industry in maintaining that addictiveness.