Obama the Smoker

Swopa at Needlenose reports on some of the worst journalism of the campaign so far. Jake Tapper of ABC News is angry that Obama claims to have stopped smoking when Tapper believes he has reeked of smoke.

The horror!

Last August, I ran into Sen. Barack Obama, D-Illinois, outside the Senate chamber in the Capitol. We chatted for a second. . . .

. . . As any close friend or family member can attest, I have an unusually keen sense of smell and immediately I smelled cigarette smoke on Obama. Frankly, he reeked of cigarettes.

Obama ran off before I could ask him if he'd just snuck a smoke, so I called his campaign. They denied it. He'd quit months before, in February, they insisted. . . . But I knew what I'd smelled and I asked his campaign to double-check and to ask him if he'd had a cigarette.

They reported back that he had told them he hadn't had a cigarette since he quit. . . .

Except…. last night on MSNBC's Hardball, Obama admitted that his attempt to wean himself from the vile tobacco weed had not been entirely successful.

“I fell off the wagon a couple times during the course of it, and then was able to get back on," he said."But it is a struggle like everything else.”

Now I wonder about last August.

It's not a big deal in the scheme of things -- the war on Iraq, a major economic crisis -- indeed, it's miniscule. Hardly worth mentioning.

Except that I don't like feeling that I wasn't being dealt with honestly. And as much as citizens who are suspect of the media might scoff at such a notion, many of us consider ourselves to be your representatives to help make sure our leaders are telling us the truth, and leading the country down a path we're confident is the right one. (Corny, I know.)

Who gives a flying fuck if Obama smokes or not? Why does this matter? What a hack. I can already see the Republican ads--"How can we trust Obama to protect our children. He is a smoker!!!"

Disgusting piece of "journalism."