Obama, the first president to smoke cigarettes

Yes, President Obama says, he occasionally sneaks a cigarette.

Obama Smoking Cigarette

This is, perhaps, one of the worst-kept secret around the White House. Weeks, the president of the advisers have declined to say whether he whipped his smoking. And one day after signing the landmark tobacco legislation, Mr. Obama conceded as many have surmised.

“If I fell from the train sometimes Yes,” said Mr. Obama on Tuesday, White House news conference. “Am I a smoker a day, a constant smoker? No.”

Between denouncing the crackdown on protests in Iran and explaining his health care plan in Congress, Mr. Obama was asked whether he still smoked. Expression on his face – a dismissive of, some of the bother – foretold his answer.

“I do not do it in front of my children,” he said. “I do not do it in front of my family. I would say that I am 95 percent cured, but there are times where I mess up.”

Mr. Obama, of course, is hardly the first president to smoke cigarettes. But, this is a new era, when tobacco was banned, the improvement of health care is at the top of the president’s agenda and tough anti-tobacco legislation is passed his table.

“First of all, the new law was put into place is not for me,” said Mr. Obama, speaking tersely to a reporter who asked the question, Margaret Talev of McClatchy Newspapers. “It’s about the next generation of kids is published.”

Mr. Obama’s answer May did little to add to public debate about smoking, but he illustrates his testiness on the subject. His wife, Michelle, told him to stop when he started his campaign, saying: “He can not be President of smoking.”

But now, it seems, he is – at least occasionally.

I make this question one every month or so, “said Mr. Obama.” You know, I do not know what to say to you, except the fact that you know, like people who go to AA, you know, once you’ve gone down this time, then you know that is something I constantly struggle with. “

Mr. Obama is not seen smoking in public for years. In 2005, on his first day in Washington as a freshman senator, he has removed a number of the window as the SUV and lit up cigarettes as they rode on Capitol Hill in a meeting at the White House. And now that he lives in the White House, the testing is far greater.

So where is he smoking? Wooded grove White House around the swimming pool and tennis courts is one place, according to people with knowledge of the matter, who are not authorized to speak about it.