Don't tell me something I don't know

       a WHCA after-dinner poem


White-housed words, mixed with laughter,
Ease the loss of truths sought-after,
Respites from the angry blows:
Don't tell me something I don't know.

The sleuths within the halls of power
(Where have they gone? Why do they cower?)
Once were fed by newsstand rows:
Don't tell me something I don't know.

A public's purse once payed for texts
Now read for free with no regrets —
Thou doth reap what thou doth sow:
Don't tell me something I don't know.

Don't trouble us with hard reports;
Suffice to pub tabloid and sports.
The public needs not the right to know:
Don't tell me something I don't know.



from White House Correspondents' Association Dinner 2009:
       Barack Obama [bit.ly/15rwf0], Wanda Sykes [bit.ly/133QHA]
from WHCA Dinner 2006, Stephen Colbert [bit.ly/lc8X2]
"The American Press on Suicide Watch" [nytimes.com/2009/05/10/opinion/10rich.html]