Hey, remember that story we were talking about Tuesday morning about that anti-smoking zealot, appointed to a state tobacco advisory board by Gov. Mike Beebe, who sent legislators an e-mail in which he compared deaths from cigarette smoking to the Holocaust? Then he went and said some really crazy things.
I’m happy to report that this zany tale went mainstream, with a couple of good stories in the actual real media, and not just on a trashy and clownish political gossip blog! It’s true!
The AP’s ace reporter Jill Zeman is on the spot with this report detailing how, surprise surprise, the governor and his legislative allies are seeking to distance themselves from Dr. Dan Hawkins, PhD, the guy who sent the original e-mail (first commented upon here by the inimitable Rep. Dan Greenberg and then published in full here).
A Beebe spokesman says Hawkins’ e-mail “lacked decorum and tact,” but that he will not be removed from his plum post on the Arkansas Tobacco Prevention & Cessation Advisory Council (ARTOPREVCESSADCO?). Doc Hawkins (PhD) tells Zeman that he stands by everything he wrote, by cracky, and those lawmakers should grow a spine and join him in his jihad against the pernicious evil of the demon weed.
Meanwhile, the Arkansas News Bureau’s man on the scene John Lyon picks up additional response from the ARTOPREVCESSADCO chair, who says, “I’ve never met this kook and he does not speak for us” (not an exact quote but it may as well be).
So to summarize, Dr. Dan Hawkins, PhD, Gov. Beebe’s latest appointee to ARTOPREVCESSADO, is a radioactive nutjob and I win.
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