After a week of well-deserved ridicule, Sen. Jon Kyl’s spokesman releases a statement to the Arizona Republic about the absurd notion that his wild misstatement about Planned Parenthood was “not intended to be a factual statement”:
“Senator Kyl misspoke when he incorrectly cited a statistic on the Senate floor last week regarding Planned Parenthood,” Patmintra said. “Rather than simply state that in response to a media inquiry, I responded that his comment was not intended to be a factual statement; a comment that, in retrospect, made no sense. Senator Kyl neither saw nor approved that response.”
But Kyl stands behind his effort to eliminate federal funding for Planned Parenthood’s other health-care services for women:
I regret the error. However, regardless of the number, I believe it is still fair to question whether taxpayers should continue to subsidize Planned Parenthood, thereby freeing up its resources to provide abortion services.
Well, that should put an end to the whole controversy and we can go back to respecting Kyl for being such an honest statesman. (#NotIntendedToBeAFactualStatement)
This article appears in Apr 14-20, 2011.
I have to say I was a little disappointed to read this. When Antenori hopped on board with his wild assertions about Ward 6, I thought it might be a trend. It was all so liberating! All my life I’ve really tried to tell the truth, often because I so feared getting caught in a lie. Suddenly it appeared I hac been focused on the wrong part of the equation! “Lie away!” the new trend seemed to beckon, “just stick to it.” Yeah. And stick to it as belligerently as possible. I could get into this, maybe. That one seductive notion, I realized, was what had kept me fascinated with Sarah Palin. During the election, I was still convinced her take was merely twisted, and if I worked at it long enough I could figure it out. But John Kyl bared the truth at last, it seemed: A person doesn’t even have to intend to tell the truth! Whole new worlds opened up. Today it’s all been dashed. Now, apparently, what he said about not intending a factual statement was not intended to be a factual statement.