It really galls me not only what Jon Kyl (R-AZ) said in the Senate, but how most of the media is making light of it.
To say on the Senate floor an outright lie and making that outright lie a part of the permanent record is totally uncalled for. Think about it. Here is a a U.S.Senator blatantly lying about Planned Parenthood's function being over 90% abortion related. Total falsehood.
Fortunately, it was such an outright lie that the media picked up on it, and now the public has been informed that about three per cent of Planned Parenthood is about abortions.
The scary thing is that had no one called Kyl on his lie, there would be those who saw him make the statement thinking that 90% is the correct figure. I mean, to an average viewer, why would a senator lie about such a thing on the Senate floor? There will be those who heard/saw what he said that will now be going around thinking that Planned Parenthood is all about abortions ("Why, they devote 90% of their time to it!") never realizing what a lie that was. That's the dangerous part.
And to have a staffer say that the lie was not intended to be a factual statement? So...we now know that anything Kyl says on the Senate floor cannot be construed as a factual statement. I'm certainly not going to believe any stats he comes up with for the Senate record will be true. Of course, Kyl is backpedaling on the backpedal by claiming he "misspoke." Well, it certainly looked to me that he was reading from text when he gave that lying speech. Perhaps his keyboard "mispoke" as well. From now on, I'll figure he's just making up any figure to jive with his position on an issue. As far as I'm concerned, John Kyl has no more credibility as a U.S. Senator. Good luck, Arizona.
What I also find particularly interesting is the lackadaisical attitude by the media. For me, this is a serious breach of trust by an elected official. Yet most of the media is treating it as a humorous gaffe. Or even worse, they just shrug their shoulders and generalize that all politicos lie, so what's the big deal? Let's poke fun at it. Until we treat these liars seriously, they will just keep on shining us on.
