In Washington, D.C., there is a grand, opulent swimming pool, and politicians of all parties swim around in this big pool together. A long time ago, those politicians could play nicely together; they even had water polo tournaments from time to time. There were lots of other people who wanted to swim in this beautiful pool, but they were relegated to the kiddie pool next door where they could only look on from afar, worshipping the opulent pool and its swimmers. Among these worshipful onlookers was an intellectual of the highest pedigree. But this alone wasn't enough to satiate him, and so he dreamt of ways to infilitrate the swimmmers, like offering them hot dogs and lemonade on hot days. This made him their freind.
One day, while delivering a stack of anchove pizzas to one portly senator, the senator leaned over and whispered, "hey Broder--get this--someone just pooped in the pool!"
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Looking on in awe and fascination, the stunned man replied, "Really? Who else knows about this?" and the senator only raised his eyebrows coyly and put his fingers to his lips, "shhhh..." and swam away, pizzas in tow.
Now, it didn't take long for the news to get out--before long, most of the kiddie pool was bursting with the news. When talking to others about the rumor that there was, in fact, poop in the glorious body of water in D.C., the folks from the kiddie pool made things up: it wasn't poop! Someone dropped a chocolate bar in the pool! Or, they'd quote anonymous sources who denied the existence of the poop, and the people believed them.
Meanwhile, all the Democrats and Republicans are swimming around in this pool. Being directly in the middle of the pool, the poop prevented them from being able to play water polo, and absolutely NO ONE wanted to play Marko Polo anymore. Many swimmers did all they could to avoid the poop, like swimming around it, and some were so afraid of it that they stayed to the edges of the pool entirely.
There were one or two brave swimmers who swam right up to the poop, pointed to it, and yelled, "See this? This is poop. Someone pooped in the pool. Who did it?" The other swimmers were aghast that anyone would be so crass as to just blurt out this horrible detail, and while some swam away pretending not to see or hear, others began shouting at them. "How dare you say such a thing about our pool!" they bellowed. "You must hate this pool to say there is poop in it." and on and on they went trying to hide the poop, deny it was there, and pretend the pool was as pristine as ever.
But the pool started to stink, and before long, there was more poop in the pool, and by this time, the infatuated kiddie pool swimmers were allowed in to swim, so long as they brought lots of yummy treats, mind you.
And so it came that the most glorious body of water in all of America became a poop swamp with politicians wading through the pool looking for somewhere clean to bathe themselves. "Remember when it was just a turd?" one swimmer said to another.
"Yeah, guess we shoulda got rid of it, huh?" the other replied.
"Well, what do we do now?"
"I don't know."
The End