Former President Obama said Monday that if his checkered pre-politics life had taken place in today’s social media oversaturated world, he might not have been able to win the White House.
He repeated stories about his own drug use in his younger days, saying that marijuana use was “what teenage kids did at that age when I was growing up.” And while he wrote about those experiences in his book, he acknowledged that if that behavior had been documented more thoroughly it might have derailed his political career.
“If you had pictures of everything I’d done when I was in high school I probably wouldn’t have been president of the United States,” Mr. Obama said as he spoke to students at the University of Chicago, making his first return to the public stage since leaving office in January.
He was asked about social media and how it can come back to bite young people in the future, and he cautioned them to be aware.
• Stephen Dinan can be reached at sdinan@washingtontimes.com.
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