Legal Commentary

Psst! Senator Obama! Got a light?

By Beldar

From Ellen DeGeneres' interview with Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) on Thursday, February 28, 2008 (my transcription, from a video clip that is available, at least for now, on YouTube):

DeGENERES: Here's the big question: Have you been able to not smoke? When there's so much pressure and so much stress, to try to do such a ? it's such a horrible, hard habit to break, and I know, because I struggle with it myself. Have you been able to stop?

OBAMA: I have ? I've been able to do it [sic]. I've been chewing on this Nicorette, which tastes like you're chewing on ground pepper.  But, uh ? but it does help. And, uh ? you know, this was, this was a deal-breaker for Michelle. And I was ? I had been sneaking three cigarettes, four cigarettes a day for a while, and she said, If you're going to do this, you've gotta stop, because ? precisely because the stress is gonna increase. And it'll just get worse. So that's an example of my wife making me a better man once again.

So just how much has Barack Obama learned not only from law school, but from studying famous law-school trained dissemblers like Bill Clinton? Certainly his interrogation from DeGeneres on this question couldn't have been a slower, bigger, or more ambiguity-inviting softball. Why didn't he just say, proudly, "Yes, I've stopped smoking"?

But let's assume that by saying he'd "been able to do it," he meant to convey that he indeed had stopped smoking. Is there still an evasion in his answer? Was he using a literal, if partial, truth to conceal a whole truth to which the candidate did not wish to admit? Would a "whole-truth" answer have been: "I've been able to stop smoking. (For a day or two at a time, and then I've started back again.)"

Was the admission that he "had been sneaking" cigarettes in the past, even though (and precisely because) it was a "deal-breaker for Michelle," a subconscious pointer, to alert us to the likelihood of present dissembling?

And is there really much doubt that those "three cigarettes, four cigarettes" a day were really at least half a pack, at least on some days? (Medical professionals are often taught to record precisely the admissions that patients make about the amount of their smoking and drinking, but then to assume for purposes of those patients' treatment that the real numbers are twice as high.)

Although it's posted in several places around the internet, I can't vouch for the authenticity of the photograph I've included in this post. Maybe it's photoshopped. However, the very fact that I can't find a photo or video of Obama smoking a cigarette on, say, Reuters.com, despite his public admissions of having been a smoker until at least very recently, tells you something about how effective Sen. Obama and his minions have been in diverting attention from his habit.

If he's a smoker who's quit and then relapsed repeatedly, Sen. Obama would have plenty of company. Me, I was a smoker for years. It's an awful, filthy, unhealthy, wasteful, smelly, thoughtless, and depraved habit. I was thoroughly familiar with all the downsides and all the risks. And yet I enjoyed every cigarette I ever smoked, even as I hated them and hated myself for smoking them.

Oh yeah, I quit! (And restarted.) In fact, I probably quit a dozen different times ? once for over a calendar year, before lapsing again back into a pack-a-day habit. I often went out of my way to try to avoid drawing attention to my smoking. And while I didn't generally lie outright about it, I certainly understood the motivation to do so, and I found (and find) it pretty easy to forgive those who have.

Does the current number of times that Sen. Obama has quit smoking exactly equal the number of times that he's started, or is the former still less than the latter by exactly one? A better question from DeGeneres would have been: "When did you last have a cigarette, Senator?" That's a question which is tougher to avoid answering through word-games.

I very distinctly remember the last time I had a cigarette. It was just after 1:00 p.m. on Monday, July 11, 2005. I finished it as I was climbing out of my car, in the parking garage at The Methodist Hospital's emergency room. I ground it out on the pavement, then thoughtfully disposed of the butt in the waste-can outside the elevator doors. I decided to take the stairs down, and walked into the ER, where I asked them to reassure me that I wasn't having a heart attack. It turned out that they couldn't give me that reassurance, because I was.

Yet even with that powerful, and so-far successful, motivator to quit smoking, I'm still tempted. And I deliberately avoid situations in which I know the temptations may be especially acute. For me, the answer to the question, "When did you last really crave a cigarette?" will always be another question: "What time is it now?"

So I wish Sen. Obama all the best with his Nicorette, or any other methods that he employs to try to counter his addiction. I have plenty of reasons not to vote for him; my vote against him in November, if he is indeed the Democratic nominee, will have nothing to do with him being a smoker, or even a sneaking smoker, whether past or present.

Nevertheless: Regular readers know that I generally loathe and distrust political opinion polls. Notwithstanding that, I'd be interested to learn what percentage of Sen. Obama's current political supporters know of his history as a smoker. I'd be willing to wager that it's less than one in five, and probably less than one in ten. And although Reuters doesn't have, or in any event won't publish, a photo of Obama smoking, about this time last year it did republish the results of an ABC News/WaPo poll which concluded: "Being female or black is less of a liability for U.S. presidential candidates than being over 72, Mormon, twice-divorced or a cigarette smoker." Of Sen. Obama specifically, Reuters described him back then as ? yes, of course ? "a smoker who says he's quit."

Full post as published by BeldarBlog on March 01, 2008 (boomark / email).