Matt Cooper thinks the biggest news out of the presser was Obama’s discussion of his own battle with smoking:
The weirdest moment came when he got asked about his own smoking and the new law giving the FDA authority to regulate tobacco. First, he referred to it as his law, which seemed a little grandiose since the likes of Henry Waxman have been pushing it since he was just a Chicago law professor. But more odd was his rather lengthy, odd defense of his current smoking. He likened it to being in “AA,” which is an unsettling image (“Everyone, this is Barack.” “Hi, Barack.”) and he pronounced himself 95 percent cured, which sounds odd. And his lawyerly answer about not smoking in front of family raised more questions than answers. You wished he’d just said that he struggled with it and not gotten into specifics or alchoholism metaphors.
What the hell? How is it strange at all to compare quitting smoking to quitting drinking? And everyone I know who smokes tries to avoid smoking in front of their kids.
Not to mention, we’re dealing with the biggest push for health care in 16 years, we may be seeing some form of history made in Iran…and Cooper focuses on the smoking?
And this is a guy that Josh Marshall employed for a while employs. Good Lord.