First rule of holes: when you’re in one… stop digging. This is a lesson Sen. John Kyl (R-AZ) has not yet grokked.

Kyl has been lampooned in recent days after his office clarified his wildly inaccurate comments about Planned Parenthood on the Senate Floor last week by telling CNN it was “not intended to be a factual statement.”

Not content with looking like a world class ass, Kyl has now compounded his lie by saying yesterday that he merely “misspoke” on the floor, and that he had not approved his aide to utter the now classic Twitter hash-tag. (#notintendedtobeafactualstatement)

There’s only one little problem Senator: if we take you at your word that you meant to say 3% of Planned Parenthood activity is abortions, but the 90% number slipped out instead, we have to accept that when you got up on the floor to speak, you intended to offer statistics that didn’t support your point. Your whole speech was basically an assertion that Planned Parenthood pretty much only existed to kill babies and didn’t serve any other useful purpose. The truthful 3% number doesn’t really support that position now does it?

Let’s face it, you lied. You lied with the intent to persuade the ignorant. And you got busted… big time.

Politically, it seemed you were better off with the “not intended as a factual statement” excuse. While it was an admission that you were prone to fits of wild hyperbole, at least it didn’t admit that you were a lying sack of s*%t willing to intentionally deceive the public to get your way.