is really nothing for anyone (and especially not Americans!) to worry about, but the other night on Hannity, one of their "experts" -- Jay Lehr of the Heartland Institute -- tried to claim that everything was working according to plan and no harm would come to anyone's health as a result of the radiation released.

HANNITY: How realistic is this threat?

LEHR: Sean, it's not at all realistic. I can tell you with the utmost confidence there will not be a health impact from anything that's going on at the Fukushima power plant.

Lehr was featured throughout Hannity's show, and he continued on in this vein -- minimizing the health effects of disasters like Chernobyl and Three Mile Island, and attacking a nuclear engineer for saying that there is at least some concern about fallout drift to the West Coast of the USA.

As Digby sez: "Call me nuts but that fellow doesn't sound all that trustworthy."

He reminds Digby of a movie character, Gen Buck Turgidson. He reminds me, on the other hand, of another character altogether. You remember J. Frank Parnell, don't you?

J. Frank Parnell: Ever been to Utah? Ra-di-a-tion. Yes, indeed. You hear the most outrageous lies about it. Half-baked goggle-box do-gooders telling everybody it's bad for you. Pernicious nonsense. Everybody could stand a hundred chest X-rays a year. They ought to have them, too. When they canceled the project it almost did me in. One day my mind was full to bursting. The next day - nothing. Swept away. But I'll show them. I had a lobotomy in the end.

Otto: Lobotomy? Isn't that for loonies?

Parnell: Not at all. Friend of mine had one. Designer of the neutron bomb. You ever hear of the neutron bomb? Destroys people - leaves buildings standing. Fits in a suitcase. It's so small, no one knows it's there until - BLAMMO. Eyes melt, skin explodes, everybody dead. So immoral, working on the thing can drive you mad. That's what happened to this friend of mine. So he had a lobotomy. Now he's well again.