Opinion: <i>Post</i>-modern satire

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I’ve never worked for a tabloid, but like many journalists I have a grudging respect for the tabs’ ability to contrive witty, if offensive, headlines in what we used to call Second Coming type. Last week the cover of the New York Post offered this Imus-like headline under a doctored photo of former New Jersey Gov. Jim “I am a Gay American” McGreevey wearing a clerical collar:

The story inside wasn’t as rich in wordplay, though it did feature a photo of the Episcopal seminary McGreevey will attend, captioned: “SIMPLY DIVINE.”

Long before he discerned a calling to the priesthood, McGreevey had provided fodder for The Onion and TV’s “Law and Order” (which aired a “ripped from the headline” episode called “Gov Love”). But the spectacle of a disgraced politician seeking holy orders takes the possibilities for satire to another level.

Take away the “disgraced” part, and McGreevey’s vocation is an example of life imitating art. A quarter of a century ago, Walter Murphy, a professor of jurisprudence at Princeton, published a wonderful novel called “The Vicar of Christ” with this high concept: A chief justice of the United States is elected pope.

Now that scenario would pose a challenge to the Post’s headline writers. “JUDGE NOT”? “A HIGHER COURT”? ‘BLACK ROBE, WHITE SMOKE’? ‘ORDER IN THE CHURCH’?