Bob Schieffer Talks About Smoking, the Tea Party, and His Favorite of Imus's Body Parts

This past Sunday on CBS’s Face the Nation, host Bob Schieffer made news when he asked House Minority Leader John Boehner, a smoker, why he continues to take money from the tobacco industry and why he won’t quit smoking. 

“Tobacco is the number one cause of preventable death in this country—455,000 people die from cigarette-related deaths” Schieffer, a former smoker, told Imus, also a former smoker.

Boehner’s reply—that it’s “a nasty habit” but that he, like millions of Americans, has the right to choose to do—seemed juvenile to Schieffer. “I noted that if people get the urge, they could probably kill themselves if they wanted to,” he said. “But maybe we ought to discourage that.”

Like so many smokers, Boehner was merely making an excuse to avoid quitting, something with which far too many people, including Schieffer, can identify.

“I wish I had never known about cigarettes,” he said. “Otherwise I wouldn’t have had bladder cancer. I wouldn’t have had ulcerative colitis. I probably wouldn’t have diabetes.”

And Boehner’s sarcastic reply to Schieffer’s suggestion that he and President Obama, who also smokes, try to quit together was indicative of the level of partisanship in Washington, DC these days.

“He said, ‘Well thanks for the suggestion,’” Schieffer said. Another missed opportunity for bipartisanship occurred during this interview, when Boehner said he wouldn’t hold the middle class tax cuts hostage if the Bush tax cuts expired.

Rep. John Boehner“When that happened, why didn’t someone at the White House call him and say, ‘John, are you really serious about that? How can we work together? That’s a courageous stand,’” Schieffer said. “It seems to me that would have been wise politically to do, but all it did was just set off another fight.”

Nobody in Washington will give an inch on anything anymore, an unfortunate reality Schiefer attributes to campaign contributions. “Congress just nibbles around the edges of all these major issues,” he said, because they are beholden to donors before they even step foot in DC.

“Their positions are set in stone, and they can’t compromise on anything,” Schieffer added.

This deadlock might help explain the Tea Party’s success in yesterday’s primaries across the country. “They ought to be the ‘Throw the Bums Out Party,’” Schieffer said. “They want to start over; whether that’s doable, whether that’s possible, I don’t know.”

What Schieffer does know, however, is that at 73 years old, it’s a good morning when he wakes up and his name isn’t in the obituaries. And, oddly, when he gets to see Imus’s neck, the subject of much ridicule on this show lately.

“I think you have a beautiful neck,” said Schieffer, whose eyes may or may not be going. “A swan-like neck!”

-Julie Kanfer