Cleaning up the Capitol ( ... kind of)

Let's get this straight: the US government has forced tobacco manufacturers to make anti-smoking ads for over a decade (yet doesn't require General Motors to make an anti-driving ad everytime a kid dies in a car accident).

However, the Speaker of the House had to ban smoking from the Capitol?

It's so bad ...

[How bad was it?]

It's so bad, that Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., "couldn't even come into the Speaker's Lobby. 'The whole place was quite polluted.'"

It's so bad ...

[How bad was it?]

It's so bad, that "cigarettes can be purchased in a House store and are sold by the carton at a sundry shop underneath the Hart and Dirksen Senate office buildings where the phone is answered, 'Hart tobacco shop.'"

It's so bad ...

[How bad was it?]

It's so bad, that they're still allowing lawmakers "to light up in their own offices."

Sorry to channel the ghost of Johnny Carson, but how does a chainsmoking government justify regulating and taxing smoking for the rest of us?