Gays, Dogs, Scissors: You just can't make this shit up!

Today's a red letter day for The New York Post. They finally printed the Platonic ideal of Post stories.

No, I'm not talking about Steve Dunleavy's heartfelt tribute to his Iraq-bound son/critique of John Kerry. (Though, that piece is pretty close to ideal for The Post.)

I'm talking about Chris Wilson's 'Gay' Dogfight, which manages to set-off almost all of the paper's hot-buttons and embody everything we look for in a 25-cent birdcage liner. To wit:

¶Violence: Nothing gets the morning blood flowing like some violence in the paper. The New York Times has some story about some crap in Iraq, but the post has this: "He just kept stabbing me. At first I thought he was punching me, until I felt all the blood dripping down. He kept saying, 'I want to kill you! Why don't you just die already?'...The scissors were open, so every time he stabbed me, it was like getting stabbed twice."

¶Celebrities: "They regularly groomed J.Lo's cocker spaniel, Boots, and Janet Jackson's Rottweiler, Reilly. They also primped P. Diddy's canine posse: Sofie, the Maltese terrier; Honey, the Shar-Pei; and Lady, the Shih Tzu." J.Lo and P. Diddy? And their dogs? Wow, wow, and bow-wow!

¶Hilarious Homos: "The former partners — considered to be among the city's top pet groomers — penned the 'Queer Eye for the Scruffy Dog' column for The New York Dog magazine." These guys are like real-life versions of Scott Donlan and Stefan Vanderhoof from Best in Show!

¶Puns: Not only does Wilson get to use puns like "the fur flew" and "animal attraction," but the alleged attacker and victim ran a company called Doggie-Doo and Pussycats, Too!. C'mon! You can't make up puns like that. Actually, I guess you can.

¶Quotation Marks: We get a 'double dose' of patented Post quote marks: Gay 'Dogfight' (hed) and Celeb groomer 'stabs' his lover (sub-hed). Why the quotes around 'stab'? I guess it's not a real stabbing if it's gay dudes.

While this is a Platonically ideal Post piece, I sort of wish they could've fit in a slam at The New York Daily News circ numbers, John Kerry, and a trendspotting exposé about something six months old. Luckily, the rest of the paper comes to the rescue.

So, kudos to Chris Wilson and the editors of The New York Post for this story: Keep up the great work and our 25-cents will be yours every single day, except Saturday when the paper's thinner than a fax sheet. And Sundays, when it's 50-cents, and twice as worthless.