(2014-01-10) — President Barack Obama said he watched Chris Christie’s news conference yesterday and admired the way the New Jersey governor dumped two top associates who had lied to him, or acted in petty, vindictive ways toward political opponents.

Doing so inspired Obama to fire the entire executive branch of the federal government this morning for the same reasons.

“I was going to be more deliberate, and review each cabinet officer, department head and staffer on a case-by-case basis,” said Obama, “but that would take a long time, and end up with the same result if I’m using honesty and integrity as the standards.”

The president arrived 45 minutes late to a scheduled 11 a.m. news conference, saying he was delayed due to the need to perform tasks he inherited from terminated staffers, including picking out his own clothing, preparing his own breakfast, and reviewing the IRS records of countless dozens of insurance applicants from HealthCare.gov.