Yeah, he does, but he doesn’t inhale. 
Please, just no cigars. We’ve seen where that can lead. 
What do you mean by smoke? I did not smoke that cigarette.
I guess you could say that very few things are possible to know for sure.
The way second-hand smoke, smokers and tobacco execs are treated you think that it would be interesting information for the Fourth Estate to get to the bottom of.
Expound, please upon how smokers are “treated,” in your view.
But this is substantially different because, if he still chose to smoke in private, we’d really have no way of knowing. He says he doesn’t smoke any more, and he hasn’t been seen smoking, so what are we to surmise from that? Still, I think it would be a pretty difficult thing to hide. I’ve also seen a reward offered by some right-leaning organization (can’t remember the name) for pictures anyone has of Obama smoking. With the media attention he’s getting these days, if such pictures existed, we’d probably be seeing them.
Former first ladies Pat Nixon and Jackie Kennedy didn’t smoke in public, although I don’t know whether or not they were on the record about it one way or the other. I’d assume any photos of them smoking during their White House years are pretty scarce.
In any case, the factual answer to the question is still “We don’t know.”
Serum nicotine levels?
Ah, but that’s what nicotine gum is for. I knew a guy who was on the patch and chewing nicotine gum who would still occasionally have a cigarette. He hadn’t really quit smoking, he’d just figured out a way to get his nicotine fix anywhere, restaurants, airplanes, hospitals. If you’re on nicotine gum you can chew it wherever you want.
I hope he doesn’t smoke, because it’s a stupid, addictive, life-threatening habit, and I’d want him to have a nice, long, healthy life ahead of him. He would also be a better role model (for those who care about such things, which means votes) as a nonsmoker. But I can understand why he might fall off the wagon given campaign stress.
In Christopher Buckley’s political comic novel The White House Mess, the President smokes secretively, and uses makeup to conceal nicotine stains on his fingers (once threatening the presidential physician, an Air Force officer, with reassignment to Thule, Greenland if word gets out about his inability to kick the habit). President Jack Ryan in the Tom Clancy novels also sneaks a puff now and again, much to the displeasure of his wife, a doctor.
President Bartlett of the West Wing was known to sneak off for a few puffs.
Nicotine stains on his fingers? I think you’d have to be smoking a pack a day of unfiltered cigarettes for that to happen. Maybe that’s what he was doing. But I’ve never known anyone who smoked filtereds to have “yellow nicotine-stained fingers” like the anti-smoking propaganda in elementary school always warns you about.
Well, it was a novel, after all, written for laughs. But I remember the scene distinctly.
This brings up a good question.
What Presidents has the United States had that smoked? I know Clinton smoke cigars(yes, yes, among other uses).
Did Lincoln smoke? Did George Washington?
I always imagiend Nixon smoking; he seems like he might have needed it.
http://www.cigaraficionado.com/Cigar/CA_Profiles/People_Profile/0,2540,106,00.html
This article goes on and on about U.S. Grant’s love of cigars, but neglects to mention that he died painfully at age 63 of throat cancer. :dubious:
Consider the source!
It’s a drug, smokers are drug addicts. Does he have the willpower to beat the addiction? Apparantley so, and if so kudos to him.
Sure, it’s a legal drug. Ok, let’s say he was addicted to prescription painkillers. Would that be an issue? Or he was an alcoholic- which is just alcohol addiction. That would be a campaign issue, no?
My WAG is that he is trying very very hard to quit but may have fallen off the wagon for a very occassional secret smoke once in a while.
Democracy now did a health report on McCain and Obama. They said he quit about a year ago.
My personal definition of “quitting” is not doing something anymore, at all. He reportedly said to Men’s Health for publication in the November 2008 issue, “I figure, seeing as I’m running for president, I need to cut myself a little slack.” Sounds recent. From what I have heard, the stresses of the actual Presidency dwarf the stresses from the Campaign Trail.
I’d rather not have a Commander-in-Chief who says, “Guess I picked the wrong week to stop sniffing glue!”