The windy city

I always thought of Chicago as an interesting city, tough but with a good heart (stockyards, Mayor Daley, riots, that kind of thing). But the Chicago Tribune turns out to be just as much of a health-conscious wimp as Andy Kerr (here):

One can parse the smoking question any way one likes, and the conclusion must always be the same for a presidential candidate (and in fact, for everyone): "You cannot smoke anymore. You must stop."
U.S. Sen. Barack Obama has decided to give it up, and this is a good thing, assuming he succeeds (not a safe assumption). The one thing we cannot have is a presidential candidate who smokes.
This is not Eastern Europe or Russia, where it seems cigarettes are issued at birth, along with orders to use them as much as possible wherever and whenever one can, right up until the last moment of life. In America, we realized long ago that smoking was a potentially fatal habit that dragged the government into terrible conflicts. On the one hand, the surgeon general has wagged an ever more frantic finger at the habit over time, even as the government has remained connected, however distantly, to tobacco production. The last thing we need is someone on the campaign trail who cannot answer questions about tobacco honestly because he is, himself, addicted, no matter how much he tries to minimize the frequency of use.

Talk about pompous!

Oh sorry, you didn't know that Senator Obama indulged? Well ye ken noo.