Malia's Asthma and the Asphyxiation of America

Having Obama, the man who took credit for inventing Obamacare at the White House science fair, blame his daughter Malia's asthma on climate change while knowing full well he was smoking at the time is like volatile actor Alec Baldwin blaming his children's nanny for any struggles they may have handling anger management issues as adults.

Besides, with all of the president's supposed medical expertise and notwithstanding being married to America's foremost health and nutrition expert, one would think that a man with such a stunning level of brilliance would at least be aware of the American Lung Association's comments concerning secondhand smoke:

  • Children are especially sensitive to the dangers of secondhand smoke!
  • Children who breathe secondhand smoke are more likely to develop asthma.
  • Children who have asthma and who breathe secondhand smoke have more asthma attacks.

But as usual, truth and logic be damned!  Barack Obama will blame anyone other than himself for whatever negative effects his poor choices and selfish behavior impose on others.

For instance, Obama has condemned G.W. Bush for everything from unemployment to the national debt to the economy to Afghanistan and most recently to the growth of ISIS.  And G.W. is not alone.  Obama faults Congress for his lack of fiscal discipline, the oil industry for high oil prices, Wall Street fat cats for anything he can think of to blame on them, and Fox News and racism for his poor poll numbers.

It's no secret that six years ago, when Barack Obama emerged from a cloud of choom smoke and ascended from the mean streets of Chicago to the lofty summit of power at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, Marlboro Red was his nicotine fix of choice.  At the time, Malia was ten years old and had racked up a decade, give or take, of inhaling her father's secondhand smoke.

What we also know is that even though he's still chewing Nicorette gum (and therefore very likely still smoking), Obama has no shame when it comes to exploiting his daughters to promote progressive policy or make political points. 

For example, in 2010, Obama headed to the Gulf of Mexico to investigate the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, eat snow cones, indulge in baskets of fried shrimp, and roll tar balls around on the beach.  The president said it was incumbent upon him to rush down there because 11-year-old Malia was fretting over the disaster.

According to the president, this is what happened: "You know, when I woke up this morning and I'm shaving, and Malia knocks on my bathroom door and she peeks in her head and she says, 'did you plug the hole yet, Daddy?'"

Now, five years later, to justify taking what he calls "concrete steps" toward the formation of initiatives purportedly directed at dealing with the impact of climate change on public health, including his hosting an upcoming White House Climate Change and Health Summit, Obama has decided that now is the perfect time to dredge up an anecdote about Malia's asthma.

Hey, wait!  Maybe avoiding a potential asthma attack was the reason the first daughters recently chose not to inhale the fumes of the 35,000 gallons of fuel burned while flying with Mom to Japan.  And maybe that's why Malia was a no-show at the 137th annual White House Easter Egg Roll.  It's never a good time for asthma sufferers with potential latent food allergies to spend time rolling eggs around on freshly mown grass.

Speaking of grass, earlier in the week at a roundtable discussion at Howard University, while discussing the environment and public health, Obama brought up his time at Occidental College in Los Angeles.

Forgetting to mention that besides smoking cigarettes, he frequently smoked "reefer" and indulged in druggie-fests while in LA, Obama blamed smog for his inability to suck air.  The president said:

I remember when I first went to college in Los Angeles in 1979, the air was so bad that you couldn't go running outside. You'd have air quality alerts, and people who had respiratory problems or were vulnerable had to stay inside.

In other words, to avoid smog-induced breathlessness, Obama, who's usually full of hot air, stayed inside and smoked pot, which recent studies claim is far worse for lung health than cigarette smoke.

Then, while discussing climate change in a one-on-one interview with ABC News's chief health and medical editor, Dr. Richard Besser, the president said this: "What I can relate to is the fear a parent has, when your 4-year-old daughter comes up to you and says, 'Daddy, I'm having trouble breathing.' The fright you feel is terrible."

Isn't Obama, now promoting himself as the "clean air for children's health" advocate, also the guy who voted "no" four times on the Illinois Born Alive Infant Protection Act, the opponents of which, in support of a woman's right to choose, believe that babies born alive in botched abortions should be denied oxygen?

Either way, rather than accept responsibility for his daughter's alleged asthma (if she even has asthma), and admit that cigarette smoking may be the culprit behind a four-year-old gasping for breath, once again Obama passed the blame from himself to an environmental scapegoat. 

As for Dr. Besser, he must have forgotten to ask whether, at the time of Malia's bronchial distress, the president was in the habit of blowing smoke rings around his daughters.

Not only that, but if we're discussing "having trouble breathing," maybe Dr. Besser should have pointed out to the president that America is terribly frightened, too, because for six years straight he's been choking the nation to death with policies that make being asphyxiated by Los Angeles pollution seem like a breath of fresh air.

Jeannie hosts a blog at www.jeannie-ology.com.

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