Kansas Senator Would Like Barack Obama To Beat Him At Basketball

Between the tantrum-throwing and secret Ben Affleck movie viewings , it appears that this debt debate has officially caused everyone in Washington to go completely insane! Or at least more insane than usual. Exhibit A: Republican Sen. Pat Roberts of Kansas is having very detailed panic dreams about a made-up basketball game between himself and President Obama, in which the two discuss tax hikes in the aviation industry and then Roberts loses miserably, to prove a point.

“I'd like to emphasize while we were playing that basically he shouldn’t be more concerned with increasing the debt ceiling past the 2012 elections and working on a long-term solution for solving the crisis,” said Roberts.

“And then after I shot and missed it and I would say ‘your ball again, Mr. President,’ I would say as he was trying to drive around me rather successfully, ‘the truth is that these aircraft actually serve as an essential business tool…’” continued Roberts.

Roberts story carried on in a similar colloquial style for about 20-minutes and included several elements of basketball including dribbling, Obama stealing the ball, the president “spot [ting] him 10,” a free shot, a hook shot, and the senior senator from Kansas giving the president a “sort of nudge” when he got under the bucket and the president throwing a “sharp elbow” that resulted in a foul.

Roberts did acknowledge that discussing tax hikes was an intense conversation for the basketball court. At one point he said Obama might ask him to “quit talking, start shooting."

And then everything would be fixed! The brainstorming is certainly going well up there on Capitol Hill. [ The Hill ]