CBS newsman Bob Schieffer pressed GOP Leader John Boehner on his filthy smoking habit yesterday on Face the Lib. It’s funny how this question never came up during his interviews with far left democrat Barack Obama, huh?
It was an ambush:
The Politico reported, via Free Republic:
CBS News anchor Bob Schieffer got personal with the top House Republican on “Face the Nation” Sunday, asking him whether he’d consider kicking his smoking habit if he becomes speaker.
Schieffer, a former smoker and cancer survivor, noted that House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) has taken $340,000 from the tobacco industry during the course of his career. The discussion:
Bob Schieffer: “They’ve been the largest contributor to your political campaigns over the year. How do you square that with the fact that cigarette smoking is the leading cause of preventable deaths in this country, 435,000 people, their deaths are linked to cancer, that’s 1 in 5. How do you justify that in your own mind?”
Rep. Boehner: “Bob, tobacco is a legal product in America. The American people have a right to decide for themselves whether they want to partake or not. There are lots of things that we deal with and come in contact with every day, from alcohol to food to cigarettes, a lot of the things that aren’t good for our health. But the American people ought to have the right to make those decisions on their own.”
Schieffer tried arguing that the American people also had the right to shoot themselves, but that didn’t mean it should be encouraged, to which Boehner responded:
“Well listen, I wish I didn’t have this bad habit — and it is a bad habit — you’ve had it, you’ve dealt with it, but it’s something that I choose to do, and you know at some point, maybe I’ll decide I’ve had enough of it.”
