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Well isn’t THIS interesting? ‘Obama told to quit smoking for good at health check-up’

By: Jeff Emanuel (Diary)  |  February 28th, 2010 at 02:22 PM  | 

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According to the AFP (emphasis added):

Barack Obama was urged by his doctor Sunday to quit smoking for good after his first health check-up as US president found him otherwise in “excellent health” and “fit for duty.”

[...]

Under his recommendations, [Obama's personal physician Jeffrey] Kuhlman urged the president to “continue smoking cessation efforts” and noted Obama was medicating himself with nicotine supplements in a bid to kick the habit.

Obama, 48, has fought a public battle to give up smoking, and promised his wife he would quit when he ran for president — but has admitted succumbing to the occasional cigarette several times since moving into the White House.

File this news on a president who has signed into law new tobacco taxes ostensibly designed to price smokers out of their habit with other “do as I say, not as I do” Obama-isms like cranking up the heat in the Oval Office so high that “you could grow orchids in there” while declaring that Americans’ thermostats must remain below 72° so the rest of the world won’t hate us.

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COMMENTS

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  • renny

    there is always a “do as I say, because I am so much smarter and I know better”–some goof in Great Britain is about to publish his esteemed research on how much smarter and more rational leftists and atheists are than conservatives and Christians (I don’t know that the pairs are “paired” but I’d wonder where he got any IQ info correlated to political philosophy unless it is merely self reported)–”and I care so much more than every one else” contrasted to the “but it doesn’t mean I will be an example of what you should do, so I’ll just do my own thing and make laws to make you do what I say.”

  • http://phxg.wordpress.com/ phxg
    • rbdwiggins
    • USNJIMRET
      • http://phxg.wordpress.com/ phxg

        And really, unless the President is in a coma, would there be anything precluding the physical from being determined “fit for duty”?

        What if the Dr. diagnosed a gross manifestation of delusional schizophrenia with inability to function in normal social settings?

        • Scope

          because he didn’t know he was inheriting such a stress inducing job of trying to hold the broom just the right way.

    • USNJIMRET
  • comrade_terry

    if he smokes or not. Actually, I wish he’d smoke three packs a day.

    I do find it interesting that someone reported to be so intelligent and such a strong person hasn’t been able to overcome his weakness for nicotine.

    • redneck_hippie

      and blew through a couple of packs right then.

      • antisocial

        Judging by the trash Dalai had to dodge, you never know. He might be littering away.

    • clintonformccain

      It’s a brutal drug addiction. Very difficult to beat unless you understand the addiciton. Obama doesn’t understand it and is therefore relying on pure willpower to beat a addiction that forces his to physically need the drug.

      What his naval doctor need to do is make him throw the gum in the trash can and acknowedge that he is a nicotine addict. Clearly, continuing to use nicotine is not helping him quit smoking. Doh!

    • phred

      As a member of the vast unwashed wing of the right I quit after his excellency ascended. My quitting wasn’t a financial decision, but out of the requisite stupidity and spite as have I written in my diary:

      http://www.redstate.com/phred/2009/04/07/to-any-of-my-friends-that-may-be-cheering-the-latest-increases-in-the-federal-tobacco-tax/

      I’ve enhanced my personal arsenal considerably with the $1800 I’ve not spent on the ciggies. It was the patriotic thing to do. — Thanks President Obama.

    • billybee

      A drug addict in the White House

  • clintonformccain

    Obama first publicly acknowleged that he was using nicotine gum in December 2006. So, it’s now been over three years of using pharmaceutical nicotine and smoking. Clearly his “nicotine replacement therapy” isn’t working. As a former nicotine-addict, I laugh everytime he opens his mouth. Last time he said that he was 95% cured! Anybody who has ever broken their nicotine addiction knows that you either is or you ain’t. There’s no percentage in between. Show me someone who thinks they can be partially cured and I’ll show you somebody who is still smoking.

    That should come as no surprise. There is not a single population study in the world that shows taking pharmaceutical nicotine is effective in breaking nicotine addiiction. Yet, Obama’s government insistst that everyone getting medical advice to quit smoking be encouraged to buy pharmaceutical nicotine. Reimbursement from Medicare, Medicaid, or private insurance requires telling patients to buy pharmaceutical products, This despite the fact that over 90% of all successful ex-smokers have quit with no pharmaceutical product whatsoever. The most recent US population study — the longitudinal survey of California published in the Journal of American Medicine — concluded that nicotine replacement therapy didn’t increase quit rates at all.

    This is a perfect example of how government doesn’t improve the efficiency of medical care and is, in all likelihood, making it more difficult for smokers to believe they can quit.

  • phototiger

    And Lord Barack’s hypocrisy surprises us how?

  • Viet71

    Good health decision. After 3 packs a day for 7 years.

    I was about to go into the army and into Viet Nam. I needed to be in control of myself.

    But hey, you want to smoke? Light ‘em up.

  • bobojake
  • Achance

    without thinking of having one! Well, it’s actually not that bad anymore, but I’ll never say I’ve quit. Best I can do is be able to keep saying I’ve not been smoking since …

  • izoneguy

    As long as I can remember.

    I moved out after college and she was still smoking.
    My Mom & Dad moved to California in 1987 and
    by 1990 her medical problems grew worse and she
    finally quit smoking.

    3 years ago she developed fibrosis in her lungs.
    Last May she passed away.

    I never did smoke – my brother still does to this day.
    He is only 20 years younger than our mother.

  • throwback59

    withdrawel might make him irritable, petulant, short-tempered maybe even arrogant. He might even say some people “acted stupidly.” Do we really want a president like that?
    Seeing him put on 25 pounds would be kind of funny, though.

  • wilfranc

    Did it include a mental exam? Acutally, I think nicotine helps the brain function better.

  • Wade

    Where are they? I know of one “infamous” internet picture of O with a cig hanging out of his mouth. Where’s the picture and/or video of him smoking?

    This isn’t just an omission akin to FDR and his wheelchair…the only reason you would not publish pictures is that as a reporter you believe it would make O look different than his image.

    Can you imagine if before the Presidential election, O went up to his teleprompter…smoking a cigarette? That’s a joke, but if we saw more pictures and video of him smoking, it gives a TOTALLY different impression of someone who is not in control of themselves, and who is much “lower class” than they think they are.

    • clintonformccain

      The campaign press corps (er…. make that corspe, I guess) saw Obama smoking on the campaign trail throughout 2007 and 2008. Just like they refused to discuss his cocaine addiciton, or the fact that conviced felon Tony Rezko had bought half his lawn for him, or the fact that he announced his first candidacy on the steps of Bill Ayers’ house, the press “corspe” opted not to show his smoking.

  • http://www.conservative-compendium.com brian_garst

    If only there was some kind of law to save Obama from himself…

    That’s what I’m sure he and other lefties are thinking, anyway. I firmly believe that liberal paternalism stems from their members’ own lack of self control.