Let me just lay this out for you.

• Barack Obama smoked a lot of pot in high school and college. To the point of having a ‘Choom gang’ dedicated to smoking the stuff.
• I don’t particularly care about that.
• Obama has since become a standard tough-guy politician on the War on Some Drugs*.
• I care somewhat about that, but it’s something that happens with a lot of politicians.
• Obama giggles and sneers about the whole thing. Including sneering at the people upset with the situation.
• I care a heck of a lot about THAT.

Look, if you want to be a drug warrior, be a drug warrior. Pot can do a lot more damage to people than its boosters admit; calling it a drug that’s no worse than alcohol (which I largely consider it to be) is not exactly a compliment. And if you think that medical marijuana laws are a back door to de facto pot legalization… well. Yes, they are. I note all of this to establish that I’m not an enthusiast about legalizing pot; I just don’t see that we’re getting a good return on our investment when it comes to suppressing it. In short, I can easily concede that the people who really don’t like marijuana may have a point.

The problem here is that President Obama only pretends to be one of those people – and that is offensive. You see, I don’t actually think that the President cares about pot use any more than I do. He’s letting people get arrested for this stuff – many of them, for doing the things that Barack Obama enthusiastically did when he was a teenager – because it’s easier than actually doing any of those wonderful-sounding things about education and treatment that politicians like to trot out when the subject comes up. No. No, Barack Obama had his Choom Time, he got away with it – something that gets pointed out several times in this Hot Air link round-up – and now the President’s supremely indifferent about whether somebody less lucky than Obama was gets his or her life ruined by getting caught.

I want to make sure that this is clear: I’m not complaining that the President is hardcore on the War on Some Drugs. Many people are hardcore. Many people think that they have excellent reason to be. I don’t really agree with them, but I may end up being wrong. What I am complaining that the President is being a fake about being hardcore.

It’s just not decent.

Moe Lane (crosspost)

*Basic human politeness forces me to note the H/T to firedoglake’s Just Say Now blog. Well, character is what you show when nobody’s looking.