President Obama Has the Half-Built Granite Presidential Seal Ripped Out of the Lawn Because the Lawn Is Sloped

WASHINGTON — Contractors on Monday began removing the granite presidential seal that had spent recent weeks taking shape on the White House lawn, after President Obama personally inspected the site and objected to the slope of the grass beneath it.

The seal — a multi-ton disc of carved stone intended as a permanent improvement to the People's Lawn — was, by all accounts, proceeding on schedule. The lawn beneath it, however, was proceeding at an angle, as lawns have done since the invention of drainage. Aides say Obama studied the grade personally and ordered the stonework recalled the way other presidents recall ambassadors.

Critics called the episode a monument to impulsivity: weeks of taxpayer-adjacent stonework, reversed by one man's afternoon walk. Supporters called it decisive executive stewardship of the nation's most photographed backyard, and noted that if you want a thing done level, you must occasionally have it done twice.

The Press has flipped the byline so readers may check which of those two sentences they reached for first, and whether they would like to trade. Laboratory conditions apply; the lawn does not care who is president, and continues to slope.

A White House statement described the removal as "a routine enhancement of a previous enhancement," which historians note is also how the seal was originally announced. The granite is expected to return, flatter, at a date to be determined by the grass.