"Not Intended to Be a Factual Statement"

Have you ever wondered why Congress is held in such low esteem? There are obviously a lot of reasons, but one of the largest is the utter disregard for the truth and the blatant manufacture of "facts" on the part of many of its members. Consider Arizona Senator John Kyl's claim that abortion is "well over 90% of what Planned Parenthood does." You can watch the Senator's comment and see some reporting on the activities of Planned Parenthood here.

The actual figure, as it turns out, is about 3%, the balance going to other women's health services. In a clarifying statement issued after this discrepancy was pointed out, Senator Kyl's office stated that his comment "was not intended to be a factual statement." You can view Stephen Colbert's satirical take on that marvelous dodge here.

I'm glad we cleared that up. What's the world coming to when our elected reprehensives have to resort to - ugh! - facts to bolster their arguments? I'm not worried, though ... Congress has a long and distinguished history of inventing the facts needed to support it's policy desires. And why not? As Mr Colbert pointed out in the specific case of Senator Kyl (but applicable to Congress in general),

"You can't call him out for being wrong when he never intended to be right."

Should the Federal Government be subsidizing the women's health activities of Planned Parenthood? That's a subject for real debate, not wild lies and distortions based on a particular party's social agenda. My personal opinion is that it shouldn't, but that has nothing to do with the value of the services Planned Parenthood provides. After all, that money would be much better spent on tax breaks for businesses that will allow them to continue to not hire new workers because people don't have jobs that would allow them to earn the money to buy the goods and services the businesses provide.

Well, I thought that sounded good when I wrote it. In any event, I can always claim it was never intended to be a factual statement.

Have a good day. More thoughts tomorrow.

Bilbo