Oh the horror! The "Congressional showdown" is forcing Michelle's demo garden into wrack and ruin! The "Obama Foodorama " by Eddie Gehman Kohan is evidently "The Blog of Record about White House Food Initiatives." It's not clear if it is paid for by the taxpayers, but judging from the fawning, servile tongue bath administered by Ms. Kohan, it sure feels like it.

Let's see, 1500 square feet: that's 30 x 50 feet, one-third the size of the garden we had when I was a kid. My grandmother's garden was at least as large as ours, and she tended it by herself till she was nearly 90. Yet Michelle and her two girls cannot take care of their plot. Must be a statement to show just how "downright mean" those Republicans are.

"The First Lady has been credited with a national spike in home and school gardening": sure she has. Her husband has been credited with lowering healthcare costs too.

"Right now, gardeners are allowed just two activities: Watering and removing trash... weeds and fallen leaves don't qualify as 'trash.'" So this is a self-imposed ban, the "skeleton staff" instructed to twiddle their thumbs rather than work.

"Until the Congressional showdown ends, there will be no happy little helpers joining Mrs. Obama." In other words, for the duration of the Republican Terror, photo ops will only document the decay and ruin of the First Lady's "masterpiece of living installation art."

The chief weeder, Executive Pastry Chef Bill Yosses, is on "furlough, as are many of the volunteers who help weed, selected from among the ranks of White House staff and other government agencies." So the "volunteers" cannot volunteer because they normally do so during government-paid work hours?

What is standard practice in the average citizen's home garden typically does not go on in Mrs. Obama's vegucation showcase. Mature plants are routinely socked into the beds to keep the garden looking lush and full. These are grown in a National Park Service greenhouse that East Wing aides only half-jokingly refer to as "top secret," or donated by a certain local farmer who has offered growing advice.

Ms. Kohan is right there, not exactly "standard practice in the average citizen's home garden." Sustainability, anyone?

"Before the shutdown, brown and yellow leaves were immediately whisked away. Diseased or bug-infested plants were removed rather than treated." Sounds like the ObamaCare model.

"There's even an organic vegetable farmer actually on the White House Park Service staff, hired in 2012 to ensure the garden's success." If the president would ask the CBO's accountants to calculate the labor inputs to those sweet potatoes he allegedly loves, we would probably learn that they cost a hundred dollars apiece.

Some of the crops, such as the heirloom Tennis Ball lettuce that's now yellowing in its bed, pay homage to President Thomas Jefferson. Perhaps America's best-known presidential gardener would have much to say about the current state of affairs in DC -- as a farmer, and as a statesman astonished by partisan brinksmanship.

That's right, even Thomas Jefferson is disappointed with the "Congressional showdown."

I got only part way through this stew of lugubrious prose before losing my appetite for more.

Henry Percy is the nom de guerre for a writer living in Arizona. He may be reached at saler.50d "at" gmail.com