can't just hold down ^K to clean up history

[jidanni]

Let's say one accidentally pastes a many lines of some email into a bash
window.

Yes bash tries to execute each line. Can't blame it.

But now we are faced with cleaning the mess out of history.

We use ^P^P^P^P^P^P^P... to finally get to the top of the mess.

Then we must use ^K^N^K^N^K^N^K^N^K^N^K^N... to clean it up.

However this leaves many blank lines in history!

Also why can't we just hold down ^K^K^K^K^K^K^K^K^K ?