Nanny-State Menthol Ban Runs Aground on Politics

President Biden’s political and policy instincts are better than his staff’s. This is one of the stranger things about this strange presidency—the generational and personal disjointedness of the head, even in its senility, and the body. The Afghanistan withdrawal, accomplished only with headwinds and something close to downright sabotage from the pointy-heads in the government, is one example; the fact that the pointy-heads needed to be told that handing out free crack pipes was a political loser is another.

The latest missed connection: Someone in the White House noticed that the administrative state has been trying to ban menthol cigarettes, and told the responsible parties to cut that out, don’t you know it’s an election year? Eighty percent of black smokers smoke menthols, and Biden isn’t about to do down the demographic groups that carried him to victory in Pennsylvania. We don’t say this very often around the TAC offices, but: good for him. Smoke ‘em if you’ve got ‘em.

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