“Turning away from that brick wall will cause considerable tire wear.”

The President today called on all Americans to clap their hands for Obamacare, his signature health insurance reform law. Democratic journalists argue that the website was ruthlessly poisoned by Republican dalliance with Conservatives. The President’s journalists also claim that the law’s premium increases and higher deductibles are caused by evil and incomprehensible magics strewn by Republican tea pirate Ted Cruz. These strange and arcane curses are called, in Conservative circles, “math” and “common sense”.

Democrats feel math and common sense as a dark chill in the streets of the beltway.

“I have poisoned Obamacare by my dark math, Barry,” cried Pirate Cruz from Texas. “And now it is going to die.”

In a desperate comeback attempt to save his legislation, President Obama flung out his arms.

“Obamacare can get well again if Republicans throw off the dark Conservative maths and believe in faery government, too!” he yelled.

There were no Republicans there, and it was tee time; but he addressed all those who might be socializing in DC, and who were therefore nearer to him than you think: Republicans and Democrats in their luncheons, and naked interns in their gym rooms hung like Weiners.

“Do you believe?” he cried. “Do you believe that math is poison?”

“If you believe,” he shouted to them, “clap your hands; don’t let Obamacare die.”

Many in the beltway clapped

Some Republicans didn’t.

A few tea partiers who had lost their insurance and doctors considered primarying incumbent politicians.

The clapping stopped suddenly; as if countless handlers had rushed to their campaigns to see what on earth was happening; but already the Affordable Care Act was saved. First, voters became willing to pay her higher costs, then they accepted that they would lose their current insurance, then they drank heavily-spiked eggnog over Christmas to forget that they would also lose their current doctors.

“Clap your hands if you believe math is poison.”

Obamacare never thought of thanking those whose premiums went up, but she would have liked to get at the ones who had drunk too much unhealthy milkfat.

“And now to rescue vulnerable Democrats!” crowed the President.

The sun was riding in a cloudy heaven when President Obama rose from his office, begirt with swim suit and a set of golf clubs, to set out upon his perilous quest. It was not such a day as he would have chosen. He had hoped to golf, keeping not far from the grounds so that no birdie should escape his swing; he could then have exempted more of his cronies from the law. But in that partisan environment to have exempted any more would have meant dragging his already low approval rating deeper into the frozen December mud.

He regretted now that he had chosen not to read his signature 2009 legislation until long after the 2012 elections. It had such strange provisions that he often only learned about them on Fox News.

There was no other course, however, but to press forward in bureaucratic fashion, at which happily he was an adept. His journalists were unified in arguing that to move otherwise would be too costly.

“It is like approaching a brick wall at high speed,” said the Invincible Krugtron, “the effects of going forward may be unfortunate to a few of the passengers, but if you slam on the brakes you put wear and tear on the tires!”

A run through several bureaucracies had obliterated all trace of cogency from the 2,000-page law, and a death panel still loomed over the implementation, as if for a space the beltway stood still in horror that an Alaskan conservative might be proven right.

He swore this terrible oath: “The tea party or me, this time.”

Now he crawled forward like a politician, and, confidently reelected, he darted across a podium on which the news camera played, giving it only his profile, and keeping his teleprompter at the ready. He was frightfully happy.