Fun little diversion

I'm trying to remember who came up with this gimmick first.  I know I saw someone write a similar article a few months ago.  Anyway Slate is apparently going to make it a running gag. This is the shutdown story written the way a major US publication would write about a foreign government.

Six years into his rule, Obama’s position can appear confusing, even contradictory. Though the executive retains control of the country’s powerful intelligence service, capable of the extrajudicial execution of the regime’s opponents half a world away, the president’s efforts to govern domestically have been stymied in the legislature by an extremist rump faction of the main opposition party.