Boehner said he'd quit smoking if his friend did

House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio), a heavy cigarette smoker, told reporters he once offered to quit the habit only if an ailing friend also gave it up.

The Camel Ultra Light smoker said Wednesday that “I have a close friend, who also smokes. He has some health issues, his doctors urged him to quit smoking. And I told him, if he’d quit, I’d quit.”

Curious reporters pressed the lawmaker, often characterized as a nicotine fiend, whether his friend gave up the habit.

But Boehner offered an equally characteristic response — he shrugged his shoulders and rolled his eyes, a tacit acknowledgment that his buddy did not quit puffing.

“Well, I wouldn’t do it for myself, but I’d do it for him,” Boehner said at a luncheon sponsored by the Christian Science Monitor.