Obama's demagoguery on Medicare

This rhetoric makes it hard to do the negotiations that the Obama administration claims that it wants.

Paul Ryan told Barack Obama on Wednesday that the president has been incorrectly describing the Republican congressman’s Medicare plan as a voucher system.

Ryan told reporters outside the White House that he “simply explained what our plan is” to Obama during a meeting in the East Room with the House GOP.

“It's been misdescribed by the president and others,” Ryan said. He added that he wanted to clarify his position with Obama “so that in the future, he won't mischaracterize it.”

The meeting was described to POLITICO by Phil Gingrey as “frosty” and “cool.” Tim Murphy said it was like “group therapy.”

Eric Cantor, the majority leader, told POLITICO that “we pressed him repeatedly to stop the demagoguery.” Obama, he said, replied by saying that “the demagoguery runs on both sides.” . . .