Twas the Night Before Shutdown

Yesterday, Kurt Eichenwald tweeted:

Night before shutdown, House changed its rules so that ONLY GOP leadership could bring budget to floor. But it's the "Obama shutdown." Sigh. [Details here] .

The language sounded familiar, and seemed to gallop of its own accord as below -- with an assist from Matt Glassman as noted (MG):

Twas the night before shutdown: the House changed its rules
To hold us all hostage to vain spiteful fools.

Poison pills had been stuffed in the CR with care
To deprive shiftless "others" of Obamacare.

A Senate CR, disinfected and clean,
Was now blocked from a vote by the rightwing machine.

And Boehner with his baritone, and Cruz with his glower,
Took to podiums to prove gu'mmint could not sink lower.

So workers were furloughed and services shuttered.
The president was grounded, th'economy sputtered...

And all of a sudden the government mattered!
And Cruz and his crew with their own spite were spattered.

So what did they did pass, as we writhed in our beds,
But some mini-CRs and back pay for feds. (MG)

Obama stood firm as the debt ceiling loomed,
While Chait, Cohn and Epps feared the country was doomed.

Then Reid and McConnell to a rescue purported
uncertainly rode while the Tea Party snorted,

And Ryan with a smile served up more poison pills
As Collins blew a trumpet for corporate shills:

"Kill the medical device tax! Extend the sequester!"
Then Cruz crashed a barricade, abreast of Queen Esther,

'Neath banners bespeaking the hot patriotism
of those wed to states' rights, sequester and schism,

Proudly proclaiming that those most inveterate
To defund Obamacare were, in fact, confederate.

To be continued....

UPDATE: Canto II is here.
UPDATE II: Here's the whole thing.