(2013-09-18) — Russian President Vladimir Putin today stepped in to deescalate tensions between the White House and Republicans in Congress over ObamaCare. At this hour, it’s shaping up to be the Russian statesman’s second diplomatic triumph, just days after he convinced Syria to hand over its chemical weapons to the U.N..

Putin intervened after an Obama administration official, in what was later described as a “gaffe”, said Obama would drop his plans to deploy ObamaCare on the American people if Republican leaders would “abandon their party’s fiscal conservatism,” and back a number of sweeping new spending initiatives, new powers for the NSA, and new “limits on unreasonable freedom of the press.”

“I called Rep. Boehner and Sen. McConnell.” said Putin, “and explained Obama’s offer. They immediately accepted.”

A spokesman for Congressional Republicans denied that GOP leaders had “caved,” and claimed they lost nothing in the deal.

White House spokesman Jay Carney said Putin was able to broker the deal because of the way President Obama “projected strength” by playing golf in the midst of crisis.

Carney noted that while ObamaCare “as we know it” is now legally dead, the offer wasn’t a gaffe, because “we always planned to implement it by executive order and regulatory rulings anyway. We’re still on Plan A.”