GOPer Says Medicare And Social Security Are Unconstitutional Then Whines When He’s Attacked For It

Indiana GOP U.S. Senate candidate Richard Mourdock thinks that Medicare and Social Security are unconstitutional. We know this because there is video of Mourdock expressing his incredulity at the idea that the Constitution permits the safety net for seniors to exist — in Mourdock’s words, “I challenge you in Article I, Section 8 of the United States Constitution. where those so-called enumerated powers are listed, I challenge you to find words that talk about ‘Medicare’ or ‘Medicaid’ or, yes, even ‘Social Security.’”

You can watch Mourdock mock the very idea that Social Security and Medicare are constitutional here:

Naturally, a group allied with Mourdock’s opponent is now running an ad informing Indiana’s voters of his belief that Medicare and Social Security offend our nation’s most fundamental principles — and Mourdock suddenly wants to pretend that he believes something else:

Titled “Unconstitutional,” [the ad] starts with World War II-era footage, and then shows several elderly people. “They earned it,” a narrator says. “But Richard Mourdock thinks Social Security and Medicare are unconstitutional.” . . .

Mourdock shot back that the ad is a Democratic effort to “buy this seat with big, out-of-state dollars and sad distortions.”

“In typical Washington fashion, this ad scares seniors by distorting the truth,” Mourdock said. “I won’t support reform that cuts entitlements for folks 55 years and older.”

For the record, Mr. Mourdock, if you don’t want to give people the impression that you want to eliminate Medicare and Social Security, you might not want to call them unconstitutional while the camera is rolling.