Herman Cain, one of the candidates for leadership of the Republican Party, recently stirred up controversy when his campaign released an online ad that ended with a man, a leader in Cain’s campaign, taking a drag off a cigarette and exhaling a small cloud of smoke. it was pure shock politics — the rest of the ad was a honestly hum-drum listing of Reasons why Herman Cain is Awesome, and the smoking bit was pretty clearly just to generate talk. it worked. The outrage from the anti-smoking lobby was predictable. Things reached their inevitable if lamentable final phase on CBS’s Face the Nation on Sunday morning, when long-time host Bob Shieffer played the “don’t encourage young people to smoke” card.
Yeah, Bob. Because nothing screams “I’m cool” like a middle-aged white guy talking about Republican Party politics.
We don’t need a recap of all the reasons smoking is a really stupid thing that no one should ever start doing. And those unlucky folks who started and got themselves addicted really ought to stop, or at least plan for the future — every time you light up a smoke, drop a few bucks into the “support my children after I die an early death” jar (or just shoot them a text message promising that you’ll always look over them and like them forever). Smoking kills. It’s bad. it makes you smell weird. STOP IT.
That being said, the shame-the-smokers nonsense goes too far sometimes, as it did when Schieffer took off his reporter’s hat to do a little editorializing. Here’s what he said (apologies for the length):
Schieffer: mr. Cain, I just have to question you what is the point of that? having a man smoke a cigarette in a television commercial?
Cain: One of the themes within this campaign is let Herman be Herman. Mark Block is a smoker and we say let Mark be Mark. That’s all we’re trying to say because we believe let people be people. he doesn’t deny that he’s a smoker. This isn’t trying.
Schieffer: are you a smoker?
Cain: no, I’m not a smoker. But I don’t have a problem if that’s his choice. so let Herman be Herman, let Mark be Mark, let people be people. This wasn’t intended to send any subliminal signal whatsoever.
Schieffer: But it does. it sends a signal that it’s cool to smoke.
Cain: no it does not. Mark Block smokes. That’s all that ad says. We weren’t trying to say it’s cool to smoke. you have a lot of people in this country that smoke. But what I respect about Mark as a smoker, who is my chief of staff, he never smokes around me or smokes around anyone else. he goes outside.
Schieffer: Let me just tell you, it’s not amusing to me. I am a cancer survivor like you. I had cancer that was smoking related. I don’t reckon it serves the country well. And this is an editorial opinion here to be showing someone smoking a cigarette. you are the front runner now and it seems to me that as the frontrunner you would have a responsibility not to take that kind of a tone here. I would suggest that perhaps as the frontrunner you’d want to raise the level of the campaign.
Cain: We will do that, Bob. And I do respect your objection to the ad. And about 30 percent of the feedback was very similar to yours. it was not intended to offend anyone and being a cancer survivor myself, I am sensitive to that sort of thing.
Schieffer: have you ever thought of just saying to young people don’t smoke? Four hundred thousand people in America die every year from smoking related…
Cain: I will have no problem saying that.
Schieffer: Well say it now.
What madness is this? What’s next, Schieffer demanding that people no longer be shown eating on TV, lest it encourage obesity (or maybe we simply ban obese people from the airwaves?). Is the only way to fight smoking to completely deny its existence? does Schieffer really reckon that Cain’s ad is going to convince more people to light up?
Cain should have called him on the absurdity of that notion, and called Schieffer out for what he was really doing — grandstanding on the soap box of “protecting the children.” instead, he did what Schieffer questioned, and encouraged young people not to smoke, which is true, but completely unnecessary for Cain to say. Young people also shouldn’t drink washer fluid. when will a candidate start championing that cause?
Terrible news, folks — People smoke. According to the Centers for Disease Control, 20.6% of American adults smoke. If you believe folks like Schieffer, every single one of those people ought to be ashamed of themselves and hide their habit from view lest they convince a child that smoking is something they should start (ironically, of course, rules forcing smokers to leave their offices and public buildings to smoke really enables more people to see them lighting up).
The argument that children are imitative should not be dismissed. But imitating spokesmen for political campaigns? please. Young people, as Shieffer calls them, start smoking for three main reasons: They have a direct role model who smokes and learn the behaviour, because of peer pressure, or their desire to be rebellious and do the opposite of what all the well-meaning Schieffers of the world insist is best for them. Or, more bluntly, young people smoke for the same reason people of all ages do all kinds of dumb things — no amount of government-funded public campaigns, no amount of grovelling apologies by public figures, and certainly no amount of sanctimonious moralizing by newsmen will ever be enough to drive recklessly shortsighted stupidity out of human nature.
Because surely, if that was possible, it would have happened already. Smoking is proven to kill in ghastly, gruesome ways. The sale of cigarettes is tightly controlled, and the advertising of tobacco products essentially eliminated. Smoking has all but vanished from well loved culture. Smokers have already been driven from their offices, from public buildings, from restaurants and bars, from some public parks, and even in some cases, their own automobiles. it might not be too far in the future when no one will be able to smoke in a home that they rent, or a public street. These at-times overreaching campaigns have won huge gains — only a small minority of people now smoke. That’s a excellent thing. The remaining minority will continue to shrink, but will never reach zero. Society needs to reconcile itself to that fact.
And in the meantime, it’s time to dial back the rhetoric just a tiny bit. an individual’s choice to smoke, or inability to quit smoking, is cause for dismay for their family and friends, and maybe even some shame on the part of the individual. But it’s time we stop treating this small minority of the population as walking billboard advertisements aimed directly at kindergartners near you. soon enough, they’re going to be having trouble enough without the rest of us blaming them for the unavoidable fact that human beings often do dumb things despite ample reasons not to.
Matt Gurney: • | mattgurney
Matt Gurney: It’s not Herman Cain’s fault that impressionable idiots start smoking