Sunday, January 13, 2008

Obama-nation

For some reason, it seems that the media has decided that it's somehow unacceptable to point out that Barack Obama was a drug user, including marijuana and cocaine, at a time when he should have been old enough to know better.

The New York Times reports that the founder of BET made a veiled allusion to Obama's drug use, at which point he felt obligated to backpedal awkwardly to claim he was referring to something else in Obama's past. This ignoring the 800-pound powdery-and-addictive gorilla wasn't sufficient, apparently:

Bill Burton, an Obama campaign spokesman said: “His [BET founder Robert L. Johnson's] tortured explanation doesn’t hold up against his original statement. And it’s troubling that neither the campaign nor Senator Clinton — who was there as the remark was made – is willing to condemn it as they did when another prominent supporter recently said a similar thing.”

Why should the remark be condemned? The fact that a man running for President is a confessed illegal drug user is pretty important, as far as I'm concerned, and I think it's something that every opponent of his, both Democrat and Republican, should hammer him on. (They should also point out that he remains a tobacco addict to this day, which shows a similar but less criminal lack of judgment...) If he made the decision to use illegal drugs when his life was relatively stress-free, who can predict what lapses in judgment he might make if he were to occupy the White House?

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