Chris Matthews' Anti-Smoking Message To The Hardball Audience

In the middle of his hour-long interview with Democratic Presidential Candidate Barack Obama on the Hardball College Tour Wednesday, host Chris Matthews touched on the candidate's old cigarette habit, and gave his own anti-smoking message to the audience. Watch the clip:

Related: Obama Jokes About The Comedic Value Of Cable News

Related: Obama On The Hardball College Tour: Watch The Highlights

Comments

[danceswithyids]

Anyone who has a problem with this, doesn't understand the health issue that smoking is in America.
If just one person doesn't pick up smoking due to this, it was well worth it.

[Purple Girl]

Maybe if he and th eother Cable Guys took their MEDS we wouldn't be driven to Smoke!
there is a Theory that smoking actually increase brain activitie- the Nicotine Kicks Up the Speed. Maybe that 's why Chris doesn't want people to smoke - We're Mentally Too FAST For Him

[transendentilist]

What are YOU smoking?

[JohnBarleycorn]

I can hardly wait for the "Obama poops" video.

Will there ever be an end to the trivial about Obama here? In my 50+ years of life I have never seen so much false praise heaped upon someone with so little substance and so little substantive public service.

Yesterday he was a nobody, but thanks almost exclusively to two issues; he's black and the hatred for all things Clinton, he's the new U.S. presidential messiah.

The liberal baby boomers have lost touch with reality. What a sad state of affairs.

[transendentilist]

I am beginning to think that whoever is pulling the strings, has realized it's a good practice to back relative unknowns, because they carry less baggage.
I wouldn't be surprized if the GOP were backing Obama, in secret. He's not like any democrat I've known. Well, except maybe Lieberman.

[dax49]

like this sell-out has any credibility

[dexxjones]

it seems that guns, smoking, sex and religion causes a certain segment of the populace to lose their minds. :) frankly, humans have smoked tobacco since they discovered fire. the real anger ought to be at the cigarette companies who add addictive poisons to the cigarettes. oddly, nobody ever wants to talk about that. water would be bad for you if they added half the crap they add to cigarettes.

[fearwig]

This is clearly as serious as the two ongoing wars, the economic crisis...

Thank you, Mr. Matthews, for going apeshit on us once again.

[danceswithyids]

Smoking actually costs the country more per year in both dollars and human lives.
Put that in your pipe and go apeshit!

[zigzag1]

Chris also went after Obama for not leaving the church and contributing thousands of dollars after the comments of Rev Wright were known. And I suppose Chris left the Catholic Church when we found out priest after priest was sexually assaulting little boys and Cardinals were covering it up and transferring them to new sources of victims.

[NoGoodNamesLeft]

he didn't go after him too hard on that issue. I have yet to see any journalist ask him about his inconsistent statements on the VIEW. When he was on that program he made the claim tha Rev Wright has admitted his statement were wrong. Rev Wright hasn't made a public statement at all. So, when did this admission from Rev Wright happen?

[danceswithyids]

Oh did Chris throw his hat in the ring to run for the presidency?
Thats what I thought.

[KISSman]

Obama was ready to admit that he had fallen off the wagon before Matthews stepped all over the question and moved on to his pre-planned joke. Then Matthews had to make it an uncomfortable situation when he tried to poll the audience.

I like that it came up because, if there is one thing that irks me about Obama, it would be his smoking habit. Being that I've only known one person to ever quit successfully, I do care in knowing how Barack is doing with this. Unfortunately, Matthews sort of went about it awkwardly.

[majseventh]

I quit 15 months ago after 33 years of smoking. It can be done, but not with the advertising on TV. They don't tell it right. I was in the hospital with pneumonia and very sick. Never smoked again. I couldn't breath as I have developed emphysema. I am trying to live 10 more years max.
Our President should not smoke and should do a better advertising campaign with programs to help people quit. There are ways but I had to be locked up with pills!
Chris and others shouldn't let him off the hook.

[NoMoFearNoMoHate]

This is the way that most of the people that I know quit and they are still suffering the health consequences of having waited so long and will for the rest of their days - being admitted to the hospital for pneumonia multiple times a year, on oxygen, etc.

The only other person that I concretely know of quitting replaced the with a less harmful one -- video games! Eventually gave those up and has been free and clear since.

[dexxjones]

who the hell cares. there will be no smoking in the camps. happy?

[NoGoodNamesLeft]

I'm not sure I heard this right. But, I think Matthews asked Obama when he had his last cigarette and Obama talked and taled, but never answered the question. So, we don't know if he actually quit yet or not.

[KDH]

It's a tough habit to crack. I don't see what it matters if or when he quit.

[NoGoodNamesLeft]

my point was, why didn't he answer the question? And even more important, why didn't that tough interviewer, Chris Matthews, get him to actually answer the question? Was the entire show like that? Did Matthews force him to answer anything? Or was Chris getting that "feeling" travellingup his thigh again that he claims Obama gives him?