Mr. Obama, of Illinois, has never quantified his illicit drug use or provided many details. He wrote about his two years at Occidental, a predominantly white liberal arts college, as a gradual but profound awakening from a slumber of indifference that gave rise to his activism there and his fears that drugs could lead him to addiction or apathy, as they had for many other black men.

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.

Or it could, you know, suggest that he completely fabricated the drug thing in a desperate attempt to fit in with the popular kids. Or that he only did drugs while he attending summer camp at a Muslim madrassa. Or that he was too busy not pledging allegiance to fully inform his peer circle of his spiraling habit.

Seriously, this article is asinine. Not only is the premise completely wack–finally, a politician is honest about his drug use and we accuse him of exaggerating–but the evidence isn’t exactly convincing. Sure, three dozen interviews is a lot, but why would Kovaleski or the Times expect acquaintances to “quantify” Obama’s moderate drug use more accurately than the Illinois senator already has–20 years after the fact? I’m only a few years out of college, but if a friend told me he’d smoked a little pot and tried cocaine while we were at school, I’d be inclined to believe him–even if I didn’t know it at the time.

I think spokesman Tommy Vietor hit the nail on the head: “[The memoir] is a candid and personal account of what Senator Obama was experiencing and thinking at the time. It’s not surprising that his friends from high school and college wouldn’t recall personal experiences and struggles that happened more than twenty years ago in the same way, and to the same extent, that he does.”

Plus, Obama never claimed to be, like, Bubbles from The Wire. Maybe he should’ve just said “I didn’t inhale.”