Is Obama still smoking while hiding and denying it?

I've written very recently of my sympathy for Sen. Obama's difficulty in trying to quit his cigarette habit. It literally took a heart attack three years ago to get me to stop, and even so, the last time I had a craving for a cigarette was ... oh, about six seconds ago. I am certainly not one of those ex-smokers who's become completely intolerant of those who still indulge, or those who have tried to quit without success so far. And I am, and always will be, vulnerable to the possibility of resuming the habit. So I'm slow to condemn smokers.

But it's disturbing to have my suspicions renewed that Sen. Obama's not only a chronic smoker, but a chronic liar about whether he's been successful in quitting. Jake Tapper of ABC News blogged yesterday about an episode from last August in which he'd smelled cigarette smoke on Sen. Obama, despite the campaign's emphatic denials that he'd still been smoking. And Tapper was apparently reminded of that episode by Obama's vague and evasive statements on the topic of his smoking on MSNBC's Hardball Softball with Chris Matthews on Wednesday:

MATTHEWS:  When did you have your last cigarette?

OBAMA:  You know —

MATTHEWS:  Was that the last time you cried?  What was that like?

Because that shows—Bush the president gave up booze.  I always thought that was an impressive thing about him.  I gave it up.  I know how hard it is.  You just give it up cold turkey.  What was it like to you and what advice can you give these kids?

OBAMA:  Don’t start.

MATTHEWS:  Don’t start.  What does it take, besides a lot of people watching you, in your case —

OBAMA:  Having your wife say on "60 Minutes" that if you see Barack with a cigarette, let me know.  That —

MATTHEWS:  No cheating.

OBAMA:  Well, you know—

MATTHEWS:  No cheating.

OBAMA:  I fell off the wagon a couple times during the course of it, and then was able to get back on.  But it is a struggle like everything else.  And I think that it is important to just keep in mind, I have a nine-year-old daughter and a six-year-old daughter.  And I want to give them away in their weddings and I want to see my grand kids, and I want to set a good example for all these young people here, and I want to make sure as president of the United States, everybody knows that I’m going to try to stay healthy.  I need you guys to stay healthy, too, because we need to bring our health care costs down.

MATTHEWS:  How many smokers are there here right now?  Smokers stand up.  Smokers stand up.  Come on.  Be honest.  Come on!  Smokers.

OBAMA:  All right, guys.

MATTHEWS:  Talk to these people.

OBAMA:  You need to get it straight.  You guys need get on the case.

MATTHEWS:  I applaud this school, a very low smoking school.  Or else a very dishonest school.  Let me ask you, any time in this campaign, did you have a chuckle that you just couldn’t get rid of?

Something weird that happened; it was so crazy that you just went to bed laughing about it.

OBAMA:  I think that happens once a day.  But then I stopped watching cable news.

MATTHEWS:  Oh.

(If you have any doubt about how deep a dive "into the tank" Matthews and MSNBC have taken for Obama, this transcript should end it. You can almost hear the tiny gears in Matthews' tiny mind turning — "Oh my God, I've actually asked a hardball question that demands a specific answer that might be embarrassing! Verbal grenade! Must smother it with my own body and blather so no one will notice and the candidate doesn't have to answer!")

I want to know the answer to that question: When exactly was the most recent occasion on which you had so much as one puff off anyone's cigarette, Senator? Or if we ask, "How long has it been?" are you going to have to respond "What time is it now?"

I'm very much reminded of the contrast when Fred Thompson was asked, while he was still in the race, what his "guilty pleasures" were. Fred said he didn't have any guilty pleasures. He enjoys a good cigar now and then, Fred said, but he doesn't feel guilty about it. And Fred doesn't lie about it, or try to conceal his habit from those who may think less of him for it.

If the more truthful current description of Obama would be "an occasional smoker who's still trying to quit" than "an ex-smoker who suffers occasional relapses," then Obama and his campaign should use the more accurate description.

Given other, far more serious vices to which he's admitted indulging in his youth but claims to have overcome, the current deception is particularly troublesome. I'm also a willing customer for the "When I was young and irresponsible, I was young and irresponsible" line of apology and explanation. But in general, episodes of falling off the wagon become progressively less forgivable, and the pattern of concealment and cover-up that people use to hide one bad habit not infrequently hides more than one. When the concealment generally works, it encourages continued concealment, and sometimes (see, e.g., Eliot Spitzer, Larry Craig, Gary Hart, Barney Frank, etc.) it encourages even more recklessness.

Recklessness is a quality that Americans voters should and do try to weed out of their presidential candidates, if you'll excuse that pun.

Even in the nanny-state America that your party is trying to move us toward, Senator, in which cigarette smoking will eventually become a criminal offense — anywhere and everywhere, even by consenting and well-informed adults who are heavily taxed for the privilege — the Nixon Rule will still prevail: It's not the crime, it's the cover-up that brings down most politicians.

Are you covering up, Senator? If so, you should quit that, even if you can't quite quit smoking yet. You don't have to give us a daily progress report on your attempts to quit, or engage in extended self-flagellation if you've put those efforts aside for a while. You don't have to flaunt the bad habit either, and indeed, you shouldn't. But when asked, be honest about it. If you can truthfully say "It's been four days since I've had a cigarette," say that, and be proud of it, but don't exaggerate that into a claim that you've successfully "kicked the habit" yet.

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UPDATE (Fri Apr 4 @ 2:30pm): AllahPundit is amused that Tapper feels so betrayed, but asks: "What right does a presidential candidate have to lie to a nosy reporter about something that’s totally irrelevant to the election and therefore none of his business?" InstaPundit answers (italics his): "Say, every right in the world?" But Tom Maguire demurs: "[I]f he is lying to us and to his wife, not to mention whiny reporters, well, that is modestly newsworthy.... No stone left unturned, or unthrown, says I."

I think Tom understates the case for the relevance of this to the campaign, and AllahPundit and Prof. Reynolds, uncharacteristically for them both, seem to be completely missing it. This isn't about finding flaws to pick at. This is a window into Obama's personality. It starts by telling us something about his personal judgments in the past, like his disclosure of his past marijuana and cocaine usage, but it goes on to tell us about his willpower now. It tells us something at least as important about his health prospects as John McCain's melanoma history. But by far the most important thing this could tell us is about his authenticity. It's not just whether he's been lying to his wife or whiny reporters. It's whether he's still lying to the American people, who are very much trying to get to know him so they can decide whether to entrust him with the presidency.