Pro-Con: Should Barack Obama quit smoking?

Yes

If President-elect Barack Obama is looking to make changes, a great place to start would be with one of his own bad habits. Obama is a smoker who has been working — on and off — to quit.

Obama, who is said to smoke three to eight cigarettes a day when he has “fallen off the wagon,” has an opportunity to inspire the nation’s smokers to kick this dangerous habit. Obama has the bully pulpit and can use it to draw attention to the perils of tobacco.

As someone who has been trying to kick the habit for a long period of time, he will make it clear that it’s not easy but that it can be done — even if you stumble a few times along the way.

The New York Times reports that 21 percent of Americans smoke, which is down from 28 percent two decades ago.

Obama should start the new year with a new effort to quit smoking.

And he should take the nation on the journey with him. It would be good for his — and the country’s — health.

No

Rumors persist that President-elect Barack Obama is trying to quit smoking. I hope they aren’t true.

The nation is too precariously balanced right now to risk having him burst into tears, or march off in a snit, or take to his bed with the glums.

It would jangle our already fragile national nerves to hear him smashing things offstage at news conferences. Nor do we want to watch him lose his train of thought and begin absent-mindedly lighting matches just to huff the sulfur and watch them burn. And do we as an obese nation, after admiring the perfect drape of Obama’s suits all these months, want to see our beautiful, svelte president swell?

Will we want it leaked that our commander in chief has been seen cowering in White House toilets sneaking puffs from his hidden stash, or furtively hunting butts in public ashtrays? Begging hits off the staff, and then swearing those government employees to secrecy?

I say heart disease, lung cancer, wrinkles and emphysema are personal issues. A president should be willing to take one for the team.

Walla Walla (Wash.) Union-Bulletin editorial

Source : http://www.kansascity.com/273/story/964451.html

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