Alvin S. Felzenberg Author, "The Leaders We Deserved" :
It was quite appropriate for Schieffer to ask Rep. Boehner about his smoking habit, just as it was entirely appropriate for Mike Brzezinski to ask Gov. Chris Christie about his weight loss regiment.
The difference between these two men and the president is that they acknowledge their human weaknesses. The president should do the same. He told us, while campaigning, that he had quit smoking. Then, on a campaign stop, he shared a nicotine depressant tablet with a supporter. Those in the know say that the president continues to smoke.
He and Boehner could enter into common cause to discourage young people from starting to smoke as they encourage adults to quit.
For that to happen, the president will need to fire his so-called press secretary. Apparently, no one told Robert Gibbs that he does not work for the DCCC and that the taxpayers and not the Democratic Party pay his salary. His repeated blasts at Boehner, who took a totally reasonable approach to taxes yesterday, was totally inappropriate. Why should he know his place when no one told the president's chief of staff that his primary purpose was to advance the president's interests rather than his own?
Obama did not set the right tone when he went ahead and endorsed Emanuel over his likely rivals for mayor of Chicago. After all, Emanuel stayed neutral in the primaries of 2008, while many would-be Chicago mayors supported Obama. At the present rate things are going for him, smoking may be the least of Obama's problems.