Let's review. Bill Clinton liked cigars, although he kept that more or less to himself before the Monica thing made it "fashionable" to joke about it. Betty Ford was a drunk. Pickles was a pot dealer and "go to girl" for her sorority sisters. Al Gore inhaled, a lot, and did so often with his Negro best friend in school. I haven't looked it up, but I'm sure each and every major candidate running for high (snicker) office in 08 has "something to be ashamed of" when it comes to poisons in the body. Now we learn that in addition to being a white-wimmin lovin, Koran reading, madrassa schoolmate of his namesake Osama and Afropower paganist, Obama also...gasp...smokes. Cigarettes, that is.

It's a sad statement that we even have to have this discussion, "oh, but what of the children," blah blah. The man is running for high office, and he's rather young- it's unlikely he'll die of it during his term if elected. I've never seen him light up in front of a camera, and I doubt he ever will. As Sean-Paul and others note, "who cares?" We've all got a flaw or two, we're all human (Republican die hards not counting). But...but(t). In this day and age, I think it's worth a second look, or thought, or something. What kind of man thinks he's got an honest shot at office and still smokes?

Being cynical, there are actually positives to this, if you're a candidate. You can admit to the Sin, make a "personal journey" into a shared narrative for people to follow, very publicly overcome the demon of tobacco, and become a Hero to all the millions who've ever had to kick something. Timed correctly, it could be quite a story to boost your campaign and buy you plenty of free media space/attention, perhaps even cancelling out some actual scandal or question plaguing your run.

Being analytical, I confess I'm a bit confused. If his motive is indeed not to have a "touching personal narrative" up his sleeve, why does he still smoke? As a smoker (but way, way less these days, really!) I can think of a few reasons.

-He just can't quit. I buy that. Goddess knows I've tried. The saying goes that (at least until the New Drugs like meth) no addiction was harder to kick, not even heroine or cocaine. I recall stories (pre-internet) about prison riots, in which inmates violently refused to give up this one rather public vice. If you've never smoked, you probably don't understand- it's a capitalist evil like no other. So perhaps the razor tells us what we need to know: Obama is a human being, he's got flaws, he lacks the "willpower" to take on this toughest of demons, and like a lot of smokers, no amount of good advice is going to make him quit before he's ready. To his credit, I've read a couple of accounts that "he's going to quit soon." We'll see. And, I truly mean this: Good luck!

-He's much dumber than all of us have given him credit for being. There are many reasons people like me won't ever run for office. A big one is that in order to run, even today, one still has to give up a lot of what is fun in life, and even publically disavow those pleasures. I'm too old to call smoking "fun," but that persistent-stupid streak always comes up when talking about it, "it's a free country and you can't make me do it if I don't want to!" That's all fine and good for a regular person, but for public figures, you have to make some hard choices, and early on, if you want to get ahead. I don't know for how long Obama has smoked, but the minute he ran for national office, I am sure his campaign people were telling him, "Boss, this has got to go." The fact that he didn't heed that advice, and let this meme slip into the media at this critical time, could be the result of bull-headed bad judgement. Confession: this makes me like him more, as it makes him seem less a creature and more his own man. Still, in this PC age, it's sort of amazing that he let his habit go this long, and become a topic for public discussion. It's also pretty dumb.

-He's much more independent and rougish than we (on this blog at least) have believed. Sort of a variation of above, but with more Marlboro Man overtones. What if he's decided that there are limits to who he will be, what he will do, to win national office, and that he's not going to budge on them? Again, choosing to smoke isn't a "smart" decision, but it's not as dumb as say, doing a boatload of coke and flying a plane or starting a war in the Middle East by choice. Perhaps he even believes smoking is a sort of hidden weapon, a way to communicate with the NASCAR dads and down-home fundies he's always telling us we need to make nice with. Let's not forget (as I recently learned after moving to The South) smoking culture is very, very different in tobacco growing states than it is elsewhere. That's changing, slowly, but there is still about a dollar's difference in taxes between a pack purchased up North vs down South. It could be that Obama wants his smoking, even if it's "in the past," to modify the "virile, manly" thing that makes him so different than Edwards and Clinton. Perhaps it's a coded way to alter his Otherness as a Black man into a more familiar being designed to appeal to white folks who despise the "PC feminazi do-gooders" who are always telling them how to live.

-He's a weakling and we shouldn't trust him to be a good national leader. As I said, I think smoking is up there with the hardest to kick drugs ever invented. Still, it's one of those "duh" choices. Be president, or keep smoking. Even the weakest willed person who desired power would take the first choice, right? I mean, we are talking "ultimate power," surely giving up cigs is worth that? Even if you don't buy that argument- if you want to win you have to be willing and able to do what it takes. For Hillary, that means cutting your hair, talking about baking cookies, sucking up the warmongers, shaking hands with Murdoch, etc. For a smoker like Obama, that means the minute he hit the Senate floor, cancer sticks should've have been Right Out. Why didn't he quit then? Moral weakness? Does Big Tobacco own him financially? Is he too lily-livered to be a manly man and take control over his own body and habits? I'm not sure it's a good move to set yourself up like this- the media is already on him for "issues" like being a Muslim (he's not) and Black Supremacist (he's not). Bill Clinton had the good sense to keep his cigars behind curtains and closed doors, and even then, he took flack for it. In this period, we live in a nation where many major cities all across the country have banned public smoking outright. Why should we trust a man with the bomb if he doesn't have the nerves/guts to give up a simple habit like smoking? (

I endorse none of these theories in particular and wonder about them all, as well as those I'm missing. But it is a mystery- for the life of me I'm not sure why Mr. Harvard and Chicago Brainiac can't quit the deathsticks or at least fake it well enough for it to be a non-issue in the oh-so-unserious media. I've not really done to much "research" into Obama the Puffy Candidate, so there is probably backstory I'm missing. But I find it an interesting angle into his character, and I'd love to hear your thoughts.

Hopefully, win or lose, quit or still smoking, Obama the Smoking Candidate opens the door to candidates who can once and for all say, "I smoked pot and like it" in the future. That's something I'll happily light up to. If nothing else, it's time we gave a pothead a chance, after several administrations run by drunks, cokeheads, womanizers and closet cases. How much worse could it be?