The Chicago Sun Times reports that Mayor Daley "could care less" about Sen. Obama's openly admitted past drug use. Indeed, Obama's refreshing candor continues to prove that he's a real human being who's made mistakes, just like everybody else. It'd be nice if more politicians were as genuine as Obama.
Mayor Daley said Thursday he couldn't care less that Barack Obama has openly admitted that he smoked marijuana and dabbled in cocaine while in high school.
Daley said past drug use should not be an issue in Obama's campaign for president in 2008. That's even though the freshman senator with the rock star image is poised to become the first presidential candidate to openly admit past cocaine use.
"Everybody should ask their sons and daughters that question. Unfortunately, drugs and alcohol [are] very prevalent in society -- every day. You can go out to the wealthiest community. You can go to the middle-class or poor community. Drugs, unfortunately, could be in everybody's home. Alcohol and drugs is a combination. It's been a problem for many, many years in this country," the mayor said.
"People realize that. They admit their mistakes. I've seen people who are recovered alcoholics, recovered drug addicts or a combination. You see people every day who have rebuilt their lives. That, unfortunately, is a temptation you see continually -- even today. ... It should not be an issue at all, whatsoever."
The Chicago Sun-Times reported last month that Daley has decided to abandon his long-standing tradition of remaining neutral in Democratic primaries to endorse Obama over Hillary Clinton in the 2008 presidential race.
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Clarence Page successfully rebukes Bill O'Reilly attempts to swiftboat Obama.
Page said it was a non issue since Obama was a kid. Then he got away with the unthinkable claiming that Bush had refused to talk about cocaine use in his youth and it didn't hurt him.
O'Reilly commented it just may be an issue in other places like Mississippi. Page's response was perfect claiming that Obama wasn't going to carry Mississippi anyway, he's been candid, and Americans love stories of redemption.
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Michael Medved writes that Obama's cocaine confessional won't blow his chances
Much to the disappointment of Obama's rivals in both parties, these disclosures stand no chance of derailing his potential campaign and may end up adding to Obama's unconventional appeal.
First of all, Obama is hardly the first prominent politician to acknowledge youthful indiscretions involving illegal drugs. Fourteen years ago, Bill Clinton easily survived his discussions of smoking marijuana, and drew far more criticism for his dodgy, weasel-words regarding his experience ("I smoked, but I didn't inhale") than for his one-time exposure to the demon weed.
If the American people managed to elect (twice) a stonewalling, wealthy frat boy from a spectacularly privileged family despite his reported involvement with illegal substances, they will readily forgive (and even embrace) a mixed-race kid from a troubled background whose father abandoned him in his infancy and who wrote candidly, long before his presidential campaign, of his regrettable participation in the drug culture.
Obama suggests in his books that he used marijuana and "blow" to ease the pain of his ongoing struggle to define his racial identity, and that association makes it all but unthinkable that even the most ruthless political operative would attempt to make an issue of long-ago substance abuse.
