Cigar-smoking Norm Coleman advises kids not to smoke

Sen. Norm Coleman (R-MN) likes his cigars. Norm also likes to say just about anything he thinks will ingratiate himself to whomever he's addressing. This time he unleashed his Norm-speak^TM on innocent, unsuspecting children in Bemidji, MN. With hypocrisy glistening from his pearly white teeth, he talked about how stealing is bad, don't succumb to peer pressure and ...

don't smoke.

This makes me sick.

[Norm] said good habits start young, and that with hard work, anyone can do anything — including having one of the Cass Lake-Bena kids someday become a U.S. senator.

“This is a great country,” he said. “If you study hard, love the things you do, you love your country, you love to serve … you could be a U.S. senator some day. I have no doubt, whatsoever.”

Coleman said he “would love, sometime in the future, when I’m really old, to come back here with a senator from this school. That would be a wonderful thing for me.”

Starting right is key, he said, with eating the right food, exercising and not smoking.

Those three lifestyle guidelines were reinforced by Nick Mueller of the American Heart Society in Duluth who participated in the school’s program for Coleman.

“Heart disease is the No. 1 reason for death,” said Mueller, who had everyone doing jumping jacks before he started speaking. “Three things to do are physical exercise, eat healthy foods and don’t smoke.”

The key, he said, “is living healthy lifestyles.”
[emphasis mine]
(Bemidji Pioneer)

Not like your Senator here, Mr. Coleman. Mr. Coleman smokes cigars. But you kids shouldn't do that. Do as me and the Senator say not as your Senator does.

Here's Norm's ironic advice about stealing and peer pressure:

As to the fruit stand theft [that he got busted for when he was a kid], Coleman said the incident taught him that “sometimes you make mistakes: I had to do something really foolish with some friends. … That’s peer pressure, and those lessons are very important later in life. … I’ve never forgotten that."
(Bemidji Pioneer)

Too bad Norm hasn't learned that lesson. When he saw the Contract on America sweep the Republicans into power in 1994, he dropped his old friends for these cooler, new kids in 1996. He's gone along with all the cool kids who wanted to invade Iraq. He's done everything the cool kids have asked him to do. But now that he's up for reelection, he's wondering how cool those kids were as he's finding out that they're actually quite unpopular. Suddenly, the cool kids have abandoned little Norman and he's scared.

Poor Norman.