It genuinely pains me to have to write this. I have known Senator Angus King since the ’90s. My family has known him for quite some time. It was my honor to help out a trade trip he took to the U.K. I co-hosted a few things with some of my U.K. contacts for his delegation. Angus was always a great statesman who knew how to behave when abroad. I have always had the greatest respect for him as a person, despite disagreeing with him politically.

I even prefer him to Senator Snowe and other options — other than me, of course — running for U.S. Senate last year.

So imagine my horror and abject disgust when I read King’s comments about those opposed to the Affordable Care Act.

Because I oppose the nationalization of one-sixth of the U.S. economy, I am no better than a murderer?

This is what Senator King said, according to the Daily Caller.

“That’s a scandal — those people are guilty of murder in my opinion,” King said in an interview with Salon’s Brian Beutler.

Has he been drinking the same substance Governor LePage uses before he utters some of his more offensive verbal vomits? Why has Senator King decided to follow LePage’s lead and utter a most offensive demagogic statement that is not based in any fact? How will this possibly bode well for Maine?

I am not even suggesting that opponents of Obamacare have made some pretty idiotic and offensive statements in the past. But such offensive, broad generalizations are not something that a senator for all Mainers should be uttering.

I wonder if Senator King realizes that 19 percent of medical professionals in a recent survey conducted by Coupa Software claimed that “Americans will die earlier” under Obamacare.

Over half of those surveyed, 51 percent, believe “quality of care will go down.” So are all these health care professionals more or less murderers too?

I understand it is not easy to resist being sucked up in the rhetorical latrine that is D.C. politics. But we expect better of you.

Maine does not need another high-profile politician on the national stage making us look rhetorically thuggish and inept.

Senator King, do you really want to be mentioned in the same breath as LeOutrage when Maine is spoken of in polite circles?

Please drag yourself out of the fetid swamp of D.C. politics and stand up for informed debate twinned with mutual respect.

Senator King, I ask you, as a friend, to apologize for your offensive remarks and move on. Maine deserves better — and intelligent political thought in this country does, as well.

ANDREW IAN DODGE is a libertarian former U.S. Senate candidate and writer who lives in Harpswell.