Lab Tests and Vices: Obama’s Physical

The only day of the year the United States president’s political enemies are all happy is the day the president gets his annual physical checkup. There’s no better day than that for behind-the-scenes insights and to find out if he has any bad habits they might use to their advantage. If his enemies are lucky, they might even get access to his medical records.

The 44th president of the U.S. underwent his first annual physical examination at Bethesda Naval Hospital just outside Washington D.C., and it turned out to be a fine thing for all concerned. Many were gratified to learn that the head of state was hearty and healthy; others discovered to their delight that Obama had quite a few vices.

By law, presidents must undergo an annual physical checkup, but aren’t required to make the results public. Since 1942, they’ve had their physicals at the Bethesda Naval Hospital, the nation’s largest and most modern military hospital. Annual physicals are routine for heads of state all over the world, but generally are not as public as they are in the U.S., where television anchors immediately report the least abnormality.

It was determined that Obama smoked and drank alcohol, albeit in moderation: He drinks white wine and limits himself to nine cigarettes per day. It always irritates Obama when the media talks about his unsuccessful attempts to kick the smoking habit, mainly because he made a promise during his campaign to quit smoking. He had smoked one to two packs per day at that point. Tobacco’s native country had been making steady progress in the fight against smoking for 20 years. Such a presidential habit, therefore, could conceivably have negative repercussions on his popularity, an annoying fact of life.

On the other hand, many were relieved that Obama was in the best of health and could continue fulfilling the duties of office. But why did the White House announce that the president weighed 81.5 kilos (180 lbs.), wearing sweats and running shoes? Until now, presidents had always had to undress before weighing in. Oh, well, maybe they just forgot …

Besides everything else, the annual physical is a great opportunity to compare the current White House occupant with his predecessors, as well as with his friends and enemies. When one looks back, many interesting things crop up.

It’s notable, for example, that the anti-Hitler coalition of Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin were nicotine and/or alcohol addicts. All three smoked and drank to excess. Roosevelt and Stalin both were in the habit of having a nightcap quite late every evening.

The “Axis of Evil” in those days consisted of complete teetotalers (with the exception of Hirohito, who enjoyed his sake). Mussolini favored milk and mineral water; Hitler abstained from nearly everything and was a vegetarian and non-smoker to boot; the Spanish dictator Franco indulged only in a glass or two of dry red wine at lunch or dinner.

Globally, there are many apocryphal tales told about famous people, and especially about their habits. Even if only half of them proved to be true, they would be enough to shame them for all eternity. And that’s something not even the rich and famous deserve. It would be wrong to claim that the Allies won World War II, just because they fought an “axis of evil” led by a trio of half-witted, half-drunk half-humans. That wouldn’t be right in any sense.

In U.S. history, there was only one president who was completely blotto during his own inauguration, and that was Andrew Johnson, Abraham Lincoln’s vice president. He was sworn in on April 15, 1865, the day Lincoln was assassinated. He had reportedly begun drinking the morning of his inauguration, due to the fact that he was in deep despair over Lincoln’s death. That explanation may sound a bit thin, but such things are possible.

Insiders maintain that Joseph Stalin drank only Kindsmarauli and Matschari wines of his native Georgia, both of which had an alcoholic content of just 3 to 4 percent. Other insiders (mostly in the West) claim that the pipe Uncle Joe smoked in public was filled with tobacco that had been removed from the Russian cigarette brand, “Herzigovina Flor”, in addition to his consumption of the above-mentioned wines. The fact is, Stalin had a weakness for whiskey. Every one of his most fateful decisions was reached after a shot of whiskey. They found thousands of foreign bottles of wine and spirits after his death. According to British sources, Stalin and Churchill were both so tipsy at the Yalta and Tehran conferences, they sounded like a couple of drunks talking to one another.

Franklin D. Roosevelt was a known chain-smoker and preferred his dry martinis mixed two parts gin to one part vermouth, but he wasn’t really known for abusing either tobacco or alcohol.

The only one of the “Big Three” leaders known for openly ostentatious drinking and smoking both was Sir Winston Churchill. He never tried to cover up his weakness for alcohol. He really didn’t care what others thought about him. He drank whiskey or gin and soda in the morning and champagne or cognac or gin at lunch. In the evening, including nightcaps, he liked whiskey. He enriched the English language with countless alcohol-related aphorisms and anecdotes. Had he been a teetotaler, the English language would have been the poorer for it. When Lady Astor once accused him of being an alcoholic and said if he were her husband, she would poison his coffee, Churchill answered her saying, “Madam, if you were my wife, I would drink it.”

According to some reports, Sir Winston drank up to a quart of gin or whiskey daily. A British Imperial quart is roughly 1.1 liters. “Always remember that I have taken more out of alcohol than alcohol has taken out of me,” Churchill is quoted as saying, stressing that alcohol never influenced his abilities or clarity of thought.

He drank before and after important negotiations and even before going into Parliament, but that’s hardly an actionable offense. Another prominent Brit, satirist George Bernard Shaw, once said, “Alcohol is a very necessary article … It makes life bearable to millions of people who could not endure their existence if they were quite sober. It enables Parliament to do things at eleven at night that no sane person would do at eleven in the morning.”