Jon Kyl, pants on fire
By reading the preceding paragraph, you might get the impression that Kyl is a horrible human being. He might very well be, I don’t really know. In fact, as far as I know, none of the things I wrote about Kyl above are true. I’m sorry if you got the wrong impression, but this is not intended to be a factual blog post. I’m merely trying to make a point, just like Kyl did.
Kyl said a silly, uniformed thing while debating budget cuts on the senate floor this week. He said that Planned Parenthood – federal funding for which is a huge point of contention – is all about abortion, stating that it was “well over 90 percent of what Planned Parenthood does.”
It turns out that Kyl’s 90 percent figure was off by a mere 87 percent, which seems like a lot, but in reality probably wasn’t too bad by politician standards.
When Kyl was called out for his bogus statistic, his response could have been to admit that he didn’t know what he was talking about. He could have blamed his mistake on a brain fart, shoddy research by an intern, or alien abduction. Instead, he had his office release this statement:
‘His remark was not intended to be a factual statement, but rather to illustrate that Planned Parenthood, a organization that receives millions of dollars in taxpayer funding, does subsidize abortions.’
“It was not intended to be a factual statement.” Imagine the freedom one must feel in saying such a thing. Some examples:
- George Washington: “The cherry tree? When I said it wasn’t me, I was just trying to make a point. My bad, bro.”
- Young Average Bob: “Yes mom, I know I told you my homework was finished, but that was not intended to be a factual statement.”
- Richard Nixon: “You know that whole ‘I am not a crook’ thing? Yeah, well, I didn’t mean to mislead you about that. Sorry! LOL!”
I don’t what kind of politician Kyl is, and I don’t have any idea how to fix our budget problems. But there is one thing I am sure of: Jon Kyl is a liar, and not a very good one at that. He is good enough at it, however, to light his own pants on fire.
Wyatt Cenac of The Daily Show breaks it down here.
