Martin Hoke: “I was appalled this weekend when, having thought that perhaps we were going to bring a lowered style of rhetoric to the…”

“I was appalled this weekend when, having thought that perhaps we were going to bring a lowered style of rhetoric to the debate on Medicare, in fact, what happened is that the administration brought out, along with some of the liberal Democratic leaders of the Congress, they trotted out the big lie again for the centerpiece of their campaign to save Medicare, or is it the centerpiece of their campaign to smear and attack Republicans? It seems to me that what has happened here is we have gotten into an incredibly demagogic style of rhetoric regarding Medicare, and it is just not right. It simply is not fair to senior citizens that we should be dealing in a partisan way with what is clearly a policy problem. It is a problem for everybody who is 65 or older, or whoever thinks that they might be 65 or older, because it is a problem with the fundamental question of whether or not we are going to be able to pay for the Medicare program based on the way that it is projected to go forward at this time.”