Drug use shouldn't be issue for Obama

Anyone who has followed the career of Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) knows that he has admitted using cocaine a few times and smoking pot in high school and during his first two years in college. He 'fessed up in a book that was written in 1995, before his political career began, and so far the revelation has not cost him with the voters.

But now he's likely running for president, and the issue is coming up again. As the Washington Post noted the other day, he's the first potential presidential candidate to admit to cocaine use. Is his pioneering confession an impediment to his ambition?

It's a hurdle all right, but it shouldn't be an insurmountable one. It did, after all, take place when he was a teenager, and he scores points for revealing it himself (rather than having it revealed by the media or political foes) and for turning his life around.

Certainly there will be those who think Obama's drug use, at whatever age and however it was revealed, permanently bars him from holding office. It's probably futile to try to change their minds. But we suspect the vast majority of Americans are more forgiving than that, and will judge Obama for what he has or hasn't done as an adult and senator, and for what he promises or doesn't promise to do as president.

So let's hope that if there is a debate over the issue that it's a quick one, so we can move on to more important matters.