When it rains, it pours:

Alabama Republican: Cigarettes A Worse Environmental Disaster Than The Oil Spill

If you thought that Joe Barton and Michelle Bachmann had won today’s prize for dumbest comment by a Congressional Republican, well you haven’t met Congressman Parker Griffith of Alabama:

In his opening statement at today’s BP hearing in the House Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations, Alabama Republican Parker Griffith downplayed the oil spill:

The greatest environmental disaster in America has been cigarettes … If we’re gonna talk about the environment, let’s be sure we don’t leave that out … The environment is an important concept, and we regret the loss of life, but there’s much we can do. We’ll put this in perspective. This is not going to be the worst thing that ever happened to America.

If he would have said “health disaster” he might have had a good point. Alas, crazy language is flowing amok today.