It’s been a week of international crisis and domestic political tension, so what was Senator John Ensign, a ‘Republican’ from Nevada, busy doing? He was attending hearings of the Senate’s Commerce Committee, hearings that he had called. The topic? The supposed threat to the nation represented by smoking in the movies. Fatuous, pointless, dumb? Of course, but one of the Senator’s aides explained the rationale, and, yes, yes, it was, oh, you know, well, let’s allow the aide to speak for himself:

“Children are being influenced by the presence of smoking in movies.”

Sigh.

Via blogger Radley Balko