Let Obama smoke

Although smoking does not pose any obvious risks to good government, stopping smoking might. People who really need to quit the drug they are taking – whether it is Heineken or heroin or hashish – generally do so by making it their top priority. Addiction counsellors warn recovering addicts that there will inevitably be days when the most important thing they do is not drink or use. Heads of state do not have the liberty to spend days this way, and getting off nicotine is not a sufficient reason why they should. The only harm smoking does is to kill the people who engage in it. It does not rob people of their moral compass or their judgment, or warp their priorities. For a man faced with serious decisions, it is a much less dangerous distraction than alcohol or sex or television. Who would rather have a president addicted to those things than one addicted to nicotine?