Serge Kovaleski’s New York Times story on Barack Obama’s youthful flirtation with recreational drugs has been in the works for a while. Obama wrote about his drug use in his autobiographical “Dreams of My Father”, and his mention of the subject prompted a brief flurry of stupidity in December culminating in the resignation of a top Clinton campaign official. Rumors began circulating around then that the Times was planning a major story on the issue. So, what did the paper find?

Not much. “In more than three dozen interviews, friends, classmates and mentors from his high school and Occidental [College] recalled Mr. Obama as being grounded, motivated and poised, someone who did not appear to be grappling with any drug problems and seemed to dabble only with marijuana.”

Well, that’s no fun. 1740 words and no, er, smoking gun?

In fact, the there is so much not there that the primary dramatic thrust of the story comes from the suggestion that Obama may have been exaggerating his drug experience in the memoir. “Mr. Obama’s account of his younger self and drugs, though, significantly differs from the recollections of others who do not recall his drug use. That could suggest he was so private about his usage that few people were aware of it, that the memories of those who knew him decades ago are fuzzy or rosier out of a desire to protect him, or that he added some writerly touches in his memoir to make the challenges he overcame seem more dramatic.”

Cool! He’s not a druggie, he’s a liar because what he remembers is different than what other people don’t remember. And there’s more where that came from.

Mr. Kakugawa, who spent seven years in and out of prison for drug offenses beginning in 1996, said he pressured Mr. Obama into drinking beer.

But Mr. Obama did not smoke marijuana during the two years they spent time together even though it was readily available, Mr. Kakugawa said, adding that he never knew Mr. Obama to have done cocaine. “As far as pot, booze or coke being a prevalent part of his life, I doubt it,” Mr. Kakugawa said. He had graduated, however, by the time Mr. Obama was in his junior and senior years, when he wrote that he most frequently used marijuana and cocaine “when you could afford it.”

Mr. Obama describes a scene in that period where, in the meat freezer of a deli, he watched someone named Micky — “my potential initiator” — pull out “the needle and the tubing,” apparently to shoot up heroin. Alarmed, Mr. Obama wrote that he imagined how an air bubble could kill him. Neither Mr. Kakugawa or the others interviewed for this article who knew Mr. Obama at Punahou recalled hearing that story from him.

There! There, you see? And Micky never came forward when Kovaleski was sniffing around Honolulu—there’s some rough duty—looking for graduates of the state’s most prestigious private school who would cop to doing dope with Obama. In fact the only former Punahou student quoted in the story is Kakugawa, the ex-con, who wasn’t around for Obama’s final years there. And although it’s presented in opposition to Obama’s account, his assessment that drugs weren’t “a prevalent part of his life” pretty much squares with Obama’s own, which was that they could have been that had he not decided to swear them off.

At a guess, I’d say this is a $20,000 story, depending on how much time Kovaleski spent in Hawaii and California and how long he worked on the piece. Not all that much compared to the expensive drivel we get from reporters traveling with the presidential campaigns, but still, that’s a lot of cash for a story that doesn’t sizzle even between the lines.

That Obama’s drug use is Gertrude Stein’s Oakland won’t stop Republicans from attempting to turn those years into a cross between Reefer Madness and HBO’s The Wire if he wins the Democratic nomination. Just to get the ball rolling, here’s my conception of the Republican conception of an Obama White House. Run scary run.

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