Jump to full article: New York Times, 2009-06-24
Author: MAUREEN DOWD
Intro: Sneaking a smoke now and again is not the worst presidential flaw imaginable.
Our president is positively monkish compared with Silvio Berlusconi, whose Vesuvial vices spurred a trio of women academics in Italy to write an "Appeal to the First Ladies." . . .
Given Berlusconi's louche ways, L'Aquila is a safe place for President Obama to indulge his lingering smoking habit.
It's interesting that someone with such daunting discipline can't apply his willpower to cigarettes. The day after he signed a historic tobacco bill, the president conceded at a White House news conference that he "constantly" struggles with his vice and falls off the wagon sometimes.
He got testy with the McClatchy reporter who asked him about his bill and his habit . . .
He also got prickly with NBC News's Chuck Todd when Todd said the president had "hinted" that there would be consequences for a repressive Iran. . . .
the president shot back, "I know everybody here is on a 24-hour news cycle. I'm not. O.K.?"
It was enough to make a guy sneak out to the Truman balcony for a smoke.
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