Setting a great example

California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, in Ottawa for a meeting with the Canadian Prime Minister, stops on the way to the airport and has a lackey buy him a Cuban cigar at the same shop where former President Bill Clinton bought some last year.

The only problem is, the U.S. has a law that makes it a crime for American citizens to buy or consume the cigars, no matter where in the world they are.

Yes, it's a stupid, unenforceable rule, and America has no jurisdiction over what its residents do in other countries, just as their laws don't apply here. Our elected leaders, however, are supposed to lead by example, and should be held to a higher standard than the average schmo, as they are representing our government when abroad. They wanted the job, so they should be decent enough to avoid even the smallest of improprieties, such as this Cigargate. Why should I bother to follow laws I don't like, when our heads of state don't even care enough about them to even try to follow them while in public?

That was a very Clintonian move by the governor, by the way, having his bobo buy the cigar in order to have plausible deniability. "I didn't buy it, and I can't control what a member of my staff does or doesn't do". At least Schwarzenegger smoked his cigar, instead of using it as a sex toy on one of his interns.