Remember those “Obama Quit, So Can I” stickers? Well, it looks like he didn’t, so maybe you can’t…
Appearing on NBC’s “Meet the Press” programme, interviewer Tom Brokaw told Mr Obama he had ducked answering the question during an interview last month with ABC’s Barbara Walters. Noting that the White House was a no-smoking zone, Brokaw asked Mr Obama, “Have you stopped smoking?”
“I have,” Mr Obama replied, smiling broadly. “What I said was that there are times where I have fallen off the wagon.”
“Wait a minute,” Brokaw interjected, “that means you haven’t stopped.”
“Fair enough,” Mr Obama said. “What I would say is that I have done a terrific job under the circumstances of making myself much healthier. You will not see any violations of these rules in the White House.”
This isn’t to say that Obama can’t quit. But if he doesn’t by next month, the paparazzi will go nuts taking pictures of him in the White House Rose Garden.
Of course. It’s that old saw: “Quitting smoking is easy. I do it all the time.”
He’s just like me!
if this is all the media has to pin on our boy obama, we’re in pretty damn good shape.
I’m trying to think who the last smoking President was. Did Nixon smoke? I don’t think he did. If Johnson smoked, he didn’t do it in front of the cameras. Kennedy smoked like a chimney, I’m pretty sure. Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush, Clinton, Bush — none of them smoked, did they?
That is awesome. Smokers always quit as soon as they’re elected President of the United States during the worst economic crisis in living memory. Right?
Now I want to know what he smokes so I can buy some. The Audacity of Smoke. Then I’ll quit when he does, I swear.
@2 but you’d be in the rose garden smoking pole.
which will only make him look more badass.
Sounds like he has issues with the truth.
@2: “He’s just like me!”
That implies that you’re a worthwhile person.
I think he meant he quit smoking regularly but he still has a cigarette occasionally.
Why does it have to be always or never?
Sounds like @8 needs to get a life.
oh my god, he’s human!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
@3 did you just call obama BOY? holy shit
@10
Maybe because addiction itself is all or never, once the addict has been -ed.
sucks.
@4: I hear Clinton enjoyed a cigar once in a while. Whether he smoked it was another issue.
Bartlet smoked.
Then said paparazzi will also go nuts repairing the holes in their bodies from Secret Service sniper fire.
If Obama was smoking, the paparazzi would have caught him already. For f*cks sake, they caught him on the beach in Hawai’i.
That said, if they do catch him smoking, the Republicans will probably try to impeach him for it.
Only a massive asshole *cough* #8 *cough* would begrudge Obama a cigarette when he takes the most stressful job in the world.
Repeatedly falling off the wagon is quitting. That’s how you quit, by trying and then trying again.
If it keeps him from nuking Russia or Iran, then SMOKE, BARACK, SMOKE!!!
And as someone above suggested, WHAT’S THE BIG HONKIN’ DEAL IF HE SMOKES???
Ooooo, but then Savage might not like him as much. Ooooo!!
He should teach his dog to smoke.
@22 it’d still be against WH rules.
@9: Poe is very worthwhile. He has contributed much to both Slog and the community at large.
Smoking might actually improve our relations with the Middle East. Obama sharing a smoke with a few Middle Eastern leaders will do wonders to our reputation there. Al Quaida would hate it b/c all the youth that they’re trying to recruit would look at Obama with a cigarette and tell AQ to fuck off.
@23, I do believe the President can shape the White House rules to a not-inconsiderable extent, i.e., if he lit up in the Oval Office, bingo, new rule.
Jack smoked the occasional ‘forbidden’ Cuban cigar; whereas Jackie (like Laura) smoked incessantly – and yet I have never seen a photograph of Jackie with a cigarette.
It’s weird that conservative wingnuts always use this picture as proof that Obama is a terrible person/muslim, but it’s apparently the only picture of Obama smoking, ever.
Again, what’s his brand?? I MUST KNOW!
@27 – I didn’t know Laura Bush smoked! Wow, that tarnishes her squeaky clean image a bit…
@29: kool, duh.
@28 – Stupidly ironic, too, considering the biggest tobacco-producing states in the country are also the most conservative!
But then that’s the only kind of irony the conservatives know, the stupid kind.
@29 – Oh man, you’re SO going to hell for that! 😉
@26 the president-does-it-new-rule didn’t work out for nixon or clinton…
If Obama wants a cigarette, the LET HIM HAVE A FUCKING CIGARETTE, YOU A$$H00L$!
Quitting smoking is the hardest thing I’ve ever done in my life. And I didn’t have to run for president that year.
I hope he succeeds.
I don’t mind that Obama smokes, obviously.
But I hate that awful Photoshopped picture of him with the cigarette in his mouth. Qualify that shit!
This is the original image.