Blowing Smoke in Joe Camel’s and Newt’s Faces

Newt Gingrich has had a lot to say lately. (They don’t call him speaker for nothing.) And the president of the United States didn’t really care to respond to most of it Thursday at his first formal news conference of 1998, at one point saying, “I’m not responsible for the speaker’s behavior.”

However. . . .

“I will tell you this,” Bill Clinton added. “The only thing he [Gingrich] said recently that really bothered me was when he said that he thought that tobacco advertising basically had no impact on whether children decided to smoke or not.

“I simply disagree with that.”

In other words, forget White House sex scandals for the moment.

Let’s talk about other habits.

Clinton is disappointed that Republican leaders rejected a bipartisan anti-smoking measure months in the making. They believe it would give government too much control over the tobacco industry.

At issue is whether Congress should be empowered to regulate tobacco’s advertising and to raise the price of cigarettes. Additional revenues would go toward public health programs and existing state medical bills pertaining to smokers.

Republican legislators may oppose him, but Clinton says, “I would never stand in the way of a tobacco bill that actually reduced childhood smoking because they disagreed with me on how to invest the money.”

A Philip Morris official calls the bill unconstitutional.

Joe Camel could not be reached for comment.

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I recently wrote a column about a TV personality who took part in a pro-smoking protest. He demonstrated his opposition to governmental interference by blatantly lighting up a cigarette--actually several--inside a nonsmoking restaurant, defying California law.

A number of readers asked, “How could you support somebody like that?”

I replied, “I didn’t.”

“But you didn’t disagree with what he did.”

OK, OK. I disagree with what he did.

I thought it was self-explanatory that I couldn’t be 100% behind somebody who simultaneously blew smoke in my face and broke the law.

But I did make the mistake of letting people form their own conclusions. I didn’t feel it necessary to add a caveat to my column like the surgeon general’s.

WARNING: THIS GUY IS ENTITLED TO HIS OPINIONS, BUT I STILL WISH HE’D PUT THAT DAMN THING OUT.

Impressionable people do need warnings, and that includes children. You know how it goes. If a kid sees a popular entertainer smoking a Kool, it probably looks cool.

I grew up in an age of tobacco ads. “Winston tastes good like a cigarette should” was my introduction to something quite bad, including the grammar.

My old man smoked unfiltered Camels. I remember puffing Parliaments in my teens for no other reason than because I liked that little piece of plastic in the filter.

I’m lucky I quit.

Cigarettes were as common as could be. Television personalities smoked freely. Dancers danced inside cigarette boxes with their legs sticking out.

Raleigh coupons were good for merchandise. Smoke enough Raleighs and you could qualify for a blender, a toaster, an iron lung.

Kids who wouldn’t know what DOA meant knew what LSMFT meant--Lucky Strike Means Fine Tobacco.

Mary Tyler Moore and Dick Van Dyke advertised Kents between scenes.

Pedestrians were shouted at from passing cars to “show us your Lark pack!”

Benson & Hedges 100s had a “silly millimeter’s difference.”

I had a friend who smoked a brand called More. It was long, thin and dark. First time I saw one, I thought it was made of chocolate.

Tobacco ads made me want to try some. I was intrigued. Every slogan seemed to stress the “great taste.” I would watch a Salem ad and feel as though I ought to be enjoying one, barefoot in a quiet stream.

I could have ended up barefoot in a quiet grave.

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Bill Clinton wants Big Tobacco to work with the government, not against it. “I would hope before this is over they would come back and rejoin the negotiations,” the president said Thursday. “I think it would be better if they’re at the table.”

The last time I saw Big Tobacco’s leaders at a table, they were denying that they thought nicotine was harmful.

A few weeks ago, I saw a boy, maybe 12, at a mall. He wore a Joe Camel shirt and was lighting one cigarette off another.

He looked cool. He can vote for president someday, if he makes 18.