Terrific. If people are taking what he said “out of context,” how come Kyl didn’t mention that when he challenged the White House for denying what Obama told him?

Kyl adds that President Obama is still “not doing enough” to secure the borders. Kyl, of course, had a small spat with the White House last week over comments he made at a town-hall meeting. Kyl, responding to a voter’s question, detailed a recent one-on-one conversation he had with the president. “They are holding [border security] hostage” over hopes for comprehensive immigration reform, Kyl said at the forum.

Kyl tells us that the comments were “taken a bit out of context,” and that the “they” he was referring to was the Left, “the president’s base,” and not the administration. “I did not try to start a fight. This meeting happened a month ago and we were talking in the context of his political problems. He was talking about how they think that if we secure the border, you guys [Republicans] won’t have the incentive to work on comprehensive immigration reform.”

I went back and re-watched the clip (skip ahead to 3:20 or so) and, yeah, it’s a bit more ambiguous on second view — but only a bit. The thrust of his point, that Obama’s extremely reluctant to enforce the border until he can appease Latinos and the left with an amnesty deal, stands as is. The difference is that Kyl’s now casting him as a sort of prisoner of his base, as if The One really wants to crack down on illegal immigration but just can’t get those darned progressives far enough off his back to do so. Whether that’s an honest description of how Obama feels (giggle) or merely Kyl trying to heal a rift with the White House after the fact by offering a little spin on The One’s behalf, I leave for you to judge.

In other Kyl news, America’s dumbest Democratic county supervisor got a letter this morning from the senator gently correcting her on a point of geography. The boss emeritus published it earlier — but inexplicably left out the map that Kyl attached. No joke: According to his office, they actually sent this to Peggy West. Comedy gold.