Is it really a big deal that our president still takes a drag every once in awhile?
Apparently it is.
Because when asked if the president still smokes, the administration goes into full spin mode.
"Asked directly if Obama still smokes," AP reports, [press secretary Robert] Gibbs said: 'I would simply tell you I think struggling with a nicotine addiction is something that happens every day'."
Why not just simply tell us the truth?
Which obviously is Yes.
It would be one thing if the president didn't want to be photographed smoking for fear of giving young people - or anyone, really - another excuse because the president does it, and probably looks kind of cool lighting up.
Instead, Obama's dodginess, which began during the campaign, is all about him.
But he has an opportunity to come clean today - and speak on behalf of the struggles of all addicts - when he appears here in Chicago before the American Medical Association. His intention is to speak about health care reform, but since the smoking question arose again last week, he could always slip something in and acknowledge what his press secretary won't.
(Maybe the White House would prefer inaccurate headlines calling Obama an Ex-Smoker to truth. And let's put an end to the fiction that quitting smoking was the favor Michelle extracted from her husband in exchange for her supporting his presidential run, which is probably a story retailed by David Axelrod to the lapdog press. Are we really to believe that Michelle would have otherwise stood in the way of the campaign?)
Last December, Ron Rosenbaum took a different tack at Slate in a piece called "Let Obama Smoke Cigarettes In The White House":
"Give Obama a break . . . a smoking break. No president has come into office facing the massive problems he does. And now he's got Chicago politics, like another monkey on his back, following him there. Let him enjoy a few contemplative moments as he works a problem."
As long as he tells the truth about it.
Steve Rhodes is the proprietor of The Beachwood Reporter, a Chicago-centric news and culture review.
