In the course of his eulogy for Ed Koch, former president Bill Clinton said he was risking a “saucy headline in the New York Post” by mentioning Viagra, according to the Daily Beast’s Lloyd Grove:
When Congress refused to pass federal restrictions on cigarettes, “He was mad, and said, ‘We got to do something!’” According to Clinton, Koch wrote a letter proposing to emphasize smoking’s impact on male virility. “This Viagra’s a big deal,” Clinton paraphrased Koch, no doubt risking a saucy headline in the New York Post. “Now politicians don’t like to talk about this, especially among young people, but young people are way more sophisticated than older people—they get this,” the ex-president continued, recounting Koch’s advice. “And it doesn’t work to tell them they’re going to get cancer or respiratory disease. Go after the virility argument.”
Koch, a former New York City mayor, died late last week at the age of 88.