Liberal Frank Kelly has penned his first one-act play, a dramedy in which the ongoing government shutdown is boiled down to a farcical horse race.

“I’m an aerospace engineer in Los Angeles (non-furloughed!). And I promise I don’t have a script I’m ‘working on,’” Kelly, who claims he doesn’t typically wade too far into politics, assured HOH via email. But he said he became so transfixed by the psychology behind the budget impasse — the idiocy of it all kept him up for a bit one night, then turned to resolve the following evening — he felt compelled to break down the fight for even the most casual of observers.

He blasted out the cheeky analysis, titled, “Government Shutdown as a Horse Race Metaphor,” to 18 friends — one of whom must have shared it with the GOP tipster who zapped it our way:

Scene: At the Horse Race Track

Republicans: “I don’t like that horse that’s winning.”

Democrats: “Oh, I actually kind of like that horse that’s winning.”

Republicans: “Well, you’re going to have to stop that horse from winning.”

Democrats: “Excuse me?”

Republicans: “Stop that horse from winning, I hate it.”

Democrats: “We already started the race, I can’t stop the horse from winning.”

Republicans: “Well fine, if you don’t stop that horse from winning I’m going to kill all the horses.”

Democrats: “What! You’re going to kill ALL the horses?”

Republicans: “Well, you leave me no choice.”

Democrats: “So just cause that horse is winning you are going to kill it and all the other horses in the race?”

Republicans: “Well, I actually can’t kill the one horse that’s winning.”

Democrats: “So you’re just going to to kill all the OTHER horses?”

Republicans: “Exactly.”

Democrats: “How is that going to stop the horse that’s winning?”

Republicans: “I don’t know, but you sure will be depressed about all these dead horses laying about.”

End Scene

To wit, Kelly hinted that he’d be just as wary of allowing the far left to wield absolute power.

“It’s like if a bunch of annoying hippies got to run the Democratic Party. ‘We’re not raising the debt ceiling until all the nuclear weapons and reactors and bad feelings are destroyed!’” he joked about his personal nightmare scenario.

Kelly may not be a comedic genius, but his comparison did make us chuckle. It remains, however, only the second-biggest debacle involving bumbling gamblers and perplexing messaging.

Congress has the Marx Brothers to thank for that.