Presidential pot trajectory

1988:  A serial liar, bomber, drug dealer, and criminal claims, without any corroborating evidence, that he sold pot to Vice Presidential candidate Dan Quayle.  Despite these allegations (which were almost certainly false), the Bush-Quayle ticket wins.

1992:  Governor William Jefferson Clinton contends that, while he put a joint to his lips and allow smoke into his mouth, he didn’t inhale.  Despite this risible claim (although I do believe that he doesn’t like pot, because not everyone does), Gov. Clinton wins the presidential election.

2008:  Senator Barack Hussein Obama is presented to the American people as the second coming of Christ, only with fewer flaws than Christ himself had.  Unsurprisingly, he wins the presidential election.

2012:  President Barack Hussein Obama is revealed to have been such a serious pot smoker in his youth that, in his high school yearbook, he thanks his pot friends and his dealer:

Barry popularized the concept of “roof hits”: when they were chooming in the car all the windows had to be rolled up so no smoke blew out and went to waste; when the pot was gone, they tilted their heads back and sucked in the last bit of smoke from the ceiling.

[snip]

Barry also had a knack for interceptions. When a joint was making the rounds, he often elbowed his way in, out of turn, shouted “Intercepted!,” and took an extra hit. No one seemed to mind.

[snip]

He was a long-haired haole hippie who worked at the Mama Mia Pizza Parlor not far from Punahou and lived in a dilapidated bus in an abandoned warehouse. … According to Topolinski, Ray the dealer was “freakin’ scary.” Many years later they learned that he had been killed with a ball-peen hammer by a scorned gay lover. But at the time he was useful because of his ability to “score quality weed.”

In another section of the [senior] yearbook, students were given a block of space to express thanks and define their high school experience. … Nestled below [Obama’s] photographs was one odd line of gratitude: “Thanks Tut, Gramps, Choom Gang, and Ray for all the good times.” … A hippie drug-dealer made his acknowledgments; his own mother did not.

These well-sourced claims about Obama are more serious than unsubstantiated allegations against Quayle or risible excuses by Clinton. The question, of course, is whether they will matter as little as the other candidates’ brushes with claims about drug use mattered, or if yet another insight into Obama’s shady, thoughtless, law-breaking, shadowy past will affect how voters view our President.