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Smoker-in-Chief

Yesterday my 7-year-old daughter, Anya, was wearing a T-shirt I’d never seen before. It was a Barack Obama shirt. I asked where it came from. She said that someone gave it to her back in the fall, after he was elected. But why finally wear it now?
Well, the kids are on spring break and Anya had a chance to visit one of our favorite New York institutions, Economy Candy, which happened to be featured this week in a Times article about how candy sales are rising in these tough times.
At Economy, Anya discovered a new treat that is now her favorite: candy cigarettes. (Frankly, I am surprised that some well-meaning zealot hasn’t gotten them banned.) She apparently spent an hour or two observing smokers on the street to get their moves down pat.
So yesterday morning, when she woke up, she thought of herself as a smoker. Cool! And who’s the most famous smoker she knows? Our president, of course. On went the shirt.
I have no idea if Obama has given up smoking or not. But considering how much he admires Abe Lincoln, he might want to think about Anya’s choice of T-shirt as the equivalent of little Grace Bedell‘s letter urging Lincoln to grow a beard.
Every schoolchild in America seems to have watched his inauguration; Obama doesn’t really want them to think of him first and foremost as a smoker, does he?


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