Obama signed an anti-smoking bill in the Rose Garden.
Which was funny because if Obama is still smoking (the White House won’t say) the most likely spot for it is right outside the Oval, in the Rose Garden. He’s still on the nicotine gum, is all the administration will allow. Obama picked up smoking as a teenager.
“I know — I was one of these teenagers,” Obama said. “So I know how difficult it can be to break this habit when it’s been with you for a long time.”
Totally hot in the Rose Garden: Jeff Zeleny of the NYT
No pictures, please: CNN cameraman Jay McMichael
The new law bans candy and fruit flavors in tobacco products, and limits advertising directed to kids.
They brought the porta-seal!
The Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act also ends labeling such as “low tar” and “light” which smoking opponents call misleading.
From Monday’s briefing, which followed the big Rose Garden event:
QUESTION: Robert, just to follow up on Jennifer’s question on smoking, why haven’t you probed the president on his smoking habits?
GIBBS: I — I — it just hasn’t crossed my mind.
Smokin’: Anita Siegfriedt, Fox News producer
Asked if it “aggravates” Obama to be asked if he’s still smoking, press secretary Robert Gibbs said, “Maybe I should give you that opportunity” to ask him.
“I feel like I’m going to be blogged,” said Chuck Kennedy
Affirmative! This Official White House Photographer took Bo the Dog’s Official White House Portrait.
Ben Finkenbinder of the WH press office is pensive. Is Obama still a smoker?
Efforts to clear up the mystery at Monday’s White House briefing failed to yield clear answers.
“I got from him that obviously this is a struggle he continues to have,” Gibbs said.
Ed Chen of Bloomberg and Margaret Talev of McClatchy
Ed looks like he’s covering a different event.
Rico Suave: Phil Elliott of AP and Sam Youngman of The Hill
” I think — I think the president has, on any number of occasions, discussed the struggle that the vice of smoking — what that’s — what that’s done to him and that he struggles with it every day,” Gibbs said. “I don’t, honestly, see the need to get a whole lot more specific than the fact that it’s a continuing struggle.”
Valerie Jarrett: If he’s smoking, she’s one who would know.
“I’m not a smoker,” Gibbs said. “It’s probably one vice I don’t have.”
Do tell, Robert!
Obama — are you thinking like we are, “What is going on with Biden’s hair?!”??
“When Henry Waxman first brought tobacco CEOs before Congress in 1994, they famously denied that tobacco was deadly, nicotine was addictive, or that their companies marketed to children,” Obama said. “And they spent millions upon millions in lobbying and advertising to fight back every attempt to expose these denials as lies.”
He added, “Fifteen years later, their campaign has finally failed.”
Paul Farhi of the Washington Post and Dan Lothian of CNN
Ha! If Farhi’s story Tuesday in the Style section quotes any “White House observers,” fair chance it was Lothian.
Sen. Chris Dodd: Work it, work it.
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