President Barack Obama used an April Fools' Day appearance in Maine on Thursday to poke fun at reporters and pundits for being too impatient in their coverage of the effects of the health care reform bill.
"Can you imagine if some of these reporters were working on a farm? You planted some seeds and they came out the next day," Obama began before launching into an imagined monologue by a journalist: "'Nothing's happened. There's no crop. We're gonna to starve. Oh, no! It's a disaster!'
"It's been a week, folks," Obama deadpanned, counseling everyone -- from reporters to Republicans -- to withhold judgment on the changes to the country's health care system until they have a chance to sink in.
Offering an unofficial White House press corps response, Associated Press reporter Phil Elliott wrote on Twitter shortly after Obama's remark: " Let me clear: I am not a farmer despite President Obama's statement."
Obama weaved other bits of humor into his speech in Portland, Maine as he refuted Republican assertions that health care reform would lead to "Armageddon."
Contrary to those statements, Obama said -- as he has before -- that no asteroids fell from the sky after the reform bill became law and added a new twist: "nobody pulled the plug on granny."
Even so, the president conceded that he understood criticism was inevitable.
"You're free to call your president an idiot," Obama said. "That's a wonderful thing."
WATCH Obama's appearance: