Tomorrow’s New Zealand Herald is running a story titled Obama owns up to cannabis, cocaine use as teen. Of course, this isn’t new information. Celebstoner.com ran this piece in January, while Obama was already forthcoming about his past back in 1995.

Obama wrote the following in his book Dreams from My Father:

I blew a few smoke rings, remembering those years. Pot had helped, and booze; maybe a little blow when you could afford it. Not smack, though - Mickey, my potential initiator, had been just a little too eager for me to go through with that. Said he could do it blindfolded, but he was shaking like a faulty engine when he said it…

Junkie. Pothead. That’s where I’d been headed; the final fatal role of the would-be black man.

Although insignificant in 1995, that quote has become a lot more interesting recently as Americans have begun entertaining thoughts of a “President Obama.” But will this ever be news again?

Democrats did not even consider the issue worthy of discussion when Bill Clinton admitted to smoking, but not inhaling, marijuana. And Republicans were more concerned with the betrayal behind (rather than the content of) the following transcript between President George W. Bush and Doug Wead. It was recorded in 1998 as Bush was contemplating a run for the Whitehouse.

GEORGE BUSH: (inaudible) it doesn’t matter – cocaine, it’d be the same with marijuana. I wouldn’t answer the marijuana question.

DOUG WEAD: Uh-hunh.

GEORGE BUSH: Do you know why? Because I don’t want some little kid doin’ what I tried.

DOUG WEAD: Yeah, and it never stops, the question.

GEORGE BUSH: But you gotta understand, I want to be President, I want to lead, I want to set… do you want your little kid to say hey Daddy, President Bush tried marijuana, I think I will?

So perhaps the issue is no longer an issue. And if that’s the case for the President of the United States, it should also be the case for the people from whom he derives his power.