No, I Can't

What's harder to quit than heroin? Yes, the mantle of political power and, in some cases, cowboy love. But what else? Smoking. In February, President Obama had his annual physical and was given a clean bill of health, but for two blots on the chart. Obama, 48, continues to struggle to stop his 30-year smoking habit and needs to modify his diet to control his cholesterol, said Dr. Jeffrey Kuhlman, a Navy captain who led the medical team that performed Obama’s physical. Nobody knows how much Obama is smoking. But last June, at a White House news conference, he shed a little light on the subject. “Have I fallen off the wagon sometimes? Yes,” Obama said to reporters. “Am I a daily smoker, a constant smoker? No.” Of course, that was before the tumbling approval ratings, the tea parties, and the pressures of November 2nd bearing down on him. Stress is a trigger for relapse, after all. His campaign slogan, Yes, We Can, implied strength in numbers, but as any recovering smoker knows, the struggle to refrain from lighting up is a lonely one.  

Update on Friday, December 10, 2010 at 12:11PM by Kathy

This just in: 

"I've not seen or witnessed evidence of any smoking in probably nine months," Robert Gibbs, White House press secretary, told reporters on Thursday. "I think he has worked extremely hard. And I think he would tell you, even when, in the midst of a tax agreement and a START deal and all the other things that accumulate, that even where he might have once found some comfort in that . . . he's pushed it away. So he understands . . . its dangers and I think has done a lot of extraordinary work to wrestle with that habit, as millions of Americans have."