by Peter Witt
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| Tee shirt detail |
The White House Correspondents' Association announced Saturday that its annual dinner will not feature comedian Amber Ruffin, nearly two months after it announced her as its selection. In fact, this year's show won't have any comedic performances at all. —ABC News, March 30, 2025
There’ll be no humor at this year’s
White House Correspondents Dinner,
no jokes to remind the trumpster that
sometimes he seems more buffoonish
than presidential, no attempts to rib
the VP for discovering
that Greenland is f’ing cold,
no jokes about butt letting the editor
of the Atlantic into a war plan call
while he sat astonished in a Safeway
parking lot,
no jokes about the hint of musk
in the white house, and efforts
to unplug Tesla sales, and no hint
that the president has spent
more money on golfing weekends
than the dogers have saved
through their court contested dismissals.
There’ll be no jokes about Jan 6th
invaders getting pardons, or
failed efforts to settle the wars
in Gaza and Ukraine on the promised
first day in office, or how Canada
has scored a hat trick as the
president can’t remember
if today he raised or lowered tariffs.
The newspeople will gather, eat
drink their cocktails, eat their shrimp,
talk about who will be banned
from next week’s press conference,
listen while the master of ceremonies
talks longingly about freedom of the press,
as the crowd whispers what the jokes
might have been if their leadership
hadn’t cowed to the jokester in chief
who is still out there somewhere
on the 18th green.
White House Correspondents Dinner,
no jokes to remind the trumpster that
sometimes he seems more buffoonish
than presidential, no attempts to rib
the VP for discovering
that Greenland is f’ing cold,
no jokes about butt letting the editor
of the Atlantic into a war plan call
while he sat astonished in a Safeway
parking lot,
no jokes about the hint of musk
in the white house, and efforts
to unplug Tesla sales, and no hint
that the president has spent
more money on golfing weekends
than the dogers have saved
through their court contested dismissals.
There’ll be no jokes about Jan 6th
invaders getting pardons, or
failed efforts to settle the wars
in Gaza and Ukraine on the promised
first day in office, or how Canada
has scored a hat trick as the
president can’t remember
if today he raised or lowered tariffs.
The newspeople will gather, eat
drink their cocktails, eat their shrimp,
talk about who will be banned
from next week’s press conference,
listen while the master of ceremonies
talks longingly about freedom of the press,
as the crowd whispers what the jokes
might have been if their leadership
hadn’t cowed to the jokester in chief
who is still out there somewhere
on the 18th green.
Peter Witt is a Texas poet, a frequent contributor to The New Verse News and other online poetry web-based publications.
