THE CALGARIAN CANDIDATE

During the Bush administration, agents of the Democratic Party hatch a long-term plot to ensure political ascendancy in the 21st century. Their secret tool: a Canadian-born Texas lawyer who they kidnap and brainwash. The mole — we will call him T. — suddenly emerges out of political obscurity in 2012, propelled into the U.S. Senate by members of the Texas Republican Party who have also been secretly hypnotized by the Democratic operatives. The only sign of their transformation is a compulsion to say “T. is the kindest, bravest, warmest, most wonderful human being I’ve ever known in my life” over and over again.

By the next year, Democrats decide they want to force the Congressional Republicans to behave with breathtaking irresponsibility. Time to pull the trigger! While T. is standing alone at a Washington costume party, he is approached by a beautiful woman dressed as the Second Amendment. And then ...

Actually, the House Republicans have plenty of Tea Party patriots who are perfectly capable of being crazy all by themselves. Representative Ted Yoho of Florida told The Times’s Ashley Parker and Jonathan Weisman that he was ready to stick to his guns: “It only takes one with passion — look at Rosa Parks, Lech Walesa, Martin Luther King.”

I am mentioning this partly because it isn’t often you hear someone equate eliminating health insurance for the poor with Rosa Parks. Also because I like to write “Representative Ted Yoho.”

The bill the House sent to the Senate on Friday doesn’t even make much sense. The “defund Obamacare” part looks as though it was written by squirrels. If it became law, Obamacare would actually continue to exist. At most, the administration would be crippled in their early efforts to get younger uninsured Americans to sign up for health coverage. (This would presumably give the opposition more time to run those ads that show a young woman being given a pelvic exam by a monster Uncle Sam doll.) And, meanwhile, the popular Children’s Health Insurance Program would be thrown into chaos, as well as payments to doctors who treat Medicare patients.

But what the heck. No sacrifice is too great when the cause is convincing young adults that they shouldn’t buy health coverage.