?

A dispute has broken out at the Irish satirical and current affairs magazine The Phoenix after one of the regular in-house satirists refused to write yet another lampoon of the Minister for Justice Michael McDowell. In an action likened to that of Bartleby, The Scribner, Jamie McCreedy came into the office as usual last Friday morning, hung his fleecy body warmer on the hanger and sat down at his desk.

But then, rather than going to the canteen to stand for an hour and a half making jokes at the expense of Irish politicians – the preferred method of satirical writers for workshopping their articles and features – he instead remained behind his PC and did nothing. For a writer to do nothing first thing in the morning is perhaps not that unusual, but Jamie didn’t even turn on his computer, read his post or talk to anyone.

Jamie’s refusal to make fun of the publicity saturated Minister only came to light in Satirical Centre when the editorial meeting was convened. After refusing to attend the usual Friday morning comical chin wag, colleagues gathered round McCreedy to find out what was wrong.

‘I’m not doing it anymore’, McCreedy is reported as replying eventually, ‘I know what’s going to happen once I go in [to the editorial meeting]. Our illustrated editor is going to turn around and ask me what I’m going to write about the McDowell – Harney business and about how the infighting of individual ministers within the same party could lead to a governmental implosion. Well, I’m not doing it any more.’

Colleagues were amazed that a paid satirist would turn down the opportunity to poke easy fun at the ambition and arrogant behaviour of a publicity greedy member of government.

‘That’s it!’ he thundered at his assembled co-workers, “it’s too easy! It’s almost of if McDowell is behaving just like his political caricature on purpose. What other politician would call Richard Bruton ‘Herr Gobbels’, when everyone knows McDowell himself is called Der Fuhrer? It’s almost of as if he imagined what the cover of the Phoenix would be before he opened his mouth”. The cover of the March 24th edition of the Phoenix showed a picture of Minister of Justice, Michael McDowell’s head on the body of Hitler.

McCreedy pointed out that the leaking of the details about the letter read out at a PD parliamentary party meeting last week was very suspicious. “It’s all too easy now to caricature McDowell as desperate to make a bid for leadership of the Progressive Democrats and to make jokes based on his frustration that Mary Harney changed her mind about stepping down. I mean, it looks for all the world like she only decided to lead the PD into the next election to prevent him getting control of the party. That can’t be right, he can’t be that messianic”.

The satirical hack argued that McDowell was becoming self-satirizing and that soon when they try to write satire it’ll come out as reportage. The protest escalated when some follow writers decided to join McCreedy’s refusal to satirize while others, mainly the cartoonists, actively disagreed with his position.

Soon a standoff situation occurred in the offices when the cartoonists started to drew highly charged satirical cartoons of McCreedy, which in the eyes of the other writers unfairly exaggerated his slight weight problem and disheveled appearance. In response some writers wrote a blistering account of some of the cartoonists drinking habits, referring to one as an ‘illiterate alcoholic beggar-bastard’.

The tension was eased later in the day when a manager produced a bottle of whiskey and a promise of a free lunch at the local hostelry.

In a separate development the leaders of Fine Gael and Labour stood shoulder to shoulder to call for a public enquiry to find out why the recent statutory law debacle had come about. In their joint statement the leaders suggested uncharitably that perhaps the Minister of Justice has taken his eye off the ball while conducting fractious party battles within the PDs.

Observers at the press conference, however, could not fail to notice how the shoulder pads of the two leader’s suits nuzzled each other lovingly.