Vanity Fair - not your mother's magazine - August 2005 - hits hard

[Democrat 4 Ever]

I have recently become a huge fan of Vanity Fair. I always thought this magazine was a fluffy publication that focused on the latest styles, hairdo and make-up for the stars. (They have their share of Prada ads and style columns but they have some really insightful, deep probing articles that I have enjoyed reading.) I got turned on to VF after reading the "Deep Throat" issue and realized there was more to this mag than first thought. They have many hard hitting articles on politics that I've enjoyed reading. Each article if fairly long but I have posted four paragraph of each just to give you the flavor of these works. If this is the work they do each month I'm glad I've signed up for a subscription. They skewer the GOP and MSM in several articles - and not just a mild, "isn't that too bad" vein. They hit hard. (Sorry about the length - hope you get to read the articles)

The August, 2005 issue has several gems.

Wolcott calls the MSM on their "cowardness"

To Live and Die in Iraq
By JAMES WOLCOTT

What a weekend it was. So much happening. Streets humming with activity. On Thursday, April 28, after intense negotiation and backroom thumb-wrestling, the Iraqi interim government finally formed a Cabinet, including (or should it be "starring"?) Ahmad Chalabi, international man of intrigue, as acting oil minister. Marring that hopeful day were the combat deaths of six Iraqis and five U.S. soldiers. That was just the teaser for T.G.I.F. and a weekend of ultra-violence. The four-day death toll was 120. The bad news didn't go uncovered Stateside. Carnage that mini-volcanic couldn't.

But on Monday, as more bombs cratered across Iraq, the Washington press whistled a merry tune, tickled pink by Laura Bush's stand-up comedy routine at the White House Correspondents' Association gala roast that weekend, when she "stunned and delighted" (marveled the New York Daily News) the tuxes and gowns of the Beltway elite with finely crafted hokum about her husband trying to milk a horse, conking out early for bed, leaving the First Lady sexually bereft ("Ladies and gentlemen, I am a desperate housewife"), and exorcising his castration anxieties by butchering the nearest vestige of nature ("George's answer to any problem at the ranch is to cut it down with a chain saw—which I think is why he and Cheney and Rumsfeld get along so well"). A Freudian fiesta that walked a fine line of naughty-but-nice, Laura Bush's steel-magnolia monologue captivated the nabobs in attendance and pundits viewing at home, who crowned her the new Domestic Goddess of Comedy, the Roseanne of the Rose Garden. But as The Nation's Washington editor, David Corn, observed in his blog, there was a notable omission that lustrous night: neither she nor her husband acknowledged the presence and sacrifice of Americans serving in Iraq and Afghanistan. Even at this annual roast, it is traditional for the president or his proxy to tender "a serious sentiment" at the conclusion, but not this year. It signifies because it was not an isolated oversight, Corn continued. "Two nights earlier at Bush's first primetime news conference in a year, Bush said nothing about the Americans risking their lives in Iraq and Afghanistan. Not a word of thanks. Not a word of tribute for those recently killed in action." David Corn seems to have been the only reporter in the room who recognized the salience of what wasn't being said. Everyone else was too busy being bubbly for the C-SPAN cameras.

It is no doubt a reductive fallacy to anthropomorphize the media—to personalize them as an individual with a quick mind, a padded ego, a shallow depth, and a professional case of A.D.D. Yet watching the news, reading the op-ed columns, and snorkeling the Internet, one gets the impression that Mr. Media—let's not kid ourselves, the media are white-middle-aged-male-dominated at the executive level—would be much happier if Iraq would resolve itself or, better yet, go away … recede like Afghanistan into the hazy distance, reduced to three column inches on page A18. It's hard for cable-news networks to amp up the umpteenth American soldier killed by a roadside explosive or another bushel of Iraqi recruits blown to scatteration when it's so much juicier chasing the latest "Amber Alert" for an abducted white girl, choppering over a tense hostage standoff, or swarming the hot celebrity trial that's inciting Nancy Grace to spit tacks at any defense lawyer who dares defend his or her client (you know, just on the quaint off chance that the bozo might be innocent). When Terri Schiavo and Pope John Paul II took turns dying and eclipsing other news, Mr. Media was able to put Iraq on the back of the shelf, behind the canned peas. Once the eulogies were completed, however, Iraq re-inserted itself into the news with an intensified round of bombings marking new coordinates in chaos. So dispiriting. John Tierney, the latest subtraction by addition to the New York Times op-ed page, proposed that this bad-news hydrant burst be plugged by responsible editors exercising restraint. The shock-horror emphasis on car bombings created a distorted picture of the occupation and monopolized the energies of reporters, preventing them from covering other stories, he contended. "I'm not advocating official censorship, but there's no reason the news media can't reconsider their own fondness for covering suicide bombings. A little restraint would give the public a more realistic view of the world's dangers."

It's Tierney who's overplaying the car bombings. The truth is, Americans have been exposed to a diminishing picture of the human destruction in Iraq. As Sydney Schanberg wrote in The Village Voice, "Yes, some photos of such bloodshed have been published at times over the span of this war. But they have become sparser and sparser, while the casualty rate has stayed the same or, frequently, shot higher." This reticence reeks of bad faith. "If we believe that the present war in Iraq is just and necessary, why do we shrink from looking at the damage it wreaks? … And why, in response, have newspapers gone along with Washington and grown timid about showing photos of the killing and maiming?" Because, post-9/11, news editors and producers have been tiptoeing like ballerinas to avoid offending the Pentagon and the Oval Office, afraid of making a dreadful faux pas. While it's awfully decent of Tierney not to advocate official censorship (which would be like a watchdog requesting a muzzle), journalistic self-censorship may be more pernicious than government censorship. At least the latter is honestly motivated by the dishonest self-interest of our elected chiselers to deceive the citizenry and get away with grand larceny. But the pale, apprehensive, hand-wringing, soul-searching self-censorship of editors and publishers trying to measure just how much unpalatable truth can be doled out to the public without upsetting their delicate digestive system serves no one's interest, not even their own. You might as well put Charlie Brown in charge.

(snip)

entire article available here - http://www.vanityfair.com/commentary/content/articles/050711roco04

Then you have Michael Wolff's

How to Get Away with Murder

Some get away with almost anything: Tom DeLay. Bill O'Reilly. Donald Trump. Al Sharpton. Others (Trent Lott, Dan Rather, Dick Grasso, Newsweek) get trashed for their mistakes. DeLay's current battle is a primer for surviving scandal

By MICHAEL WOLFF

Tom Sneddon, the Michael Jackson prosecutor, and Howard Dean, the new Democratic National Committee chairman, have similar grievances. For Sneddon, standing slack-jawed in the glare of the news-conference lights and assuming the countenance of the long-suffering virtuous, it's how did the world's most famous perv get away with it. For Dean, airing his liberal apoplexy on Meet the Press, it's why isn't Tom DeLay—as obvious in his suspect practices as Jackson is in his—in jail, and why doesn't everybody understand that Rush Limbaugh is a drug addict and big fat hypocrite.

He might have added to his frustrations Fox's Bill O'Reilly, who was vividly accused—the famous loofah—of being a sexual harasser and masher, and yet has seamlessly continued to pursue his aggressive brand of piety and rectitude. And Rudy Giuliani, who, despite a nasty and hysterical personal life, segued naturally into heroism and statesmanship. And, obviously, the president himself: having, amazingly, gotten away with a checkered history—from drink, to drugs, to women, to slipping the bonds of the National Guard—he then gets away with the fantastic misrepresentations that pave the way into and sustain the war in Iraq.

For that matter, why is Donald Trump, a serial corporate bankrupt, nevertheless a business celebrity without peer? And what about Jack Welch, the exemplar of straight talk? He doesn't seem to have been slowed at all by tales of baroque romantic pursuits or by evidence that he's just a cheesy expense-account hound. And, cripes, there's Al Sharpton, going stronger than ever. Al Sharpton!

But then, without certain logic, there are others—both Democrats and Republicans no more smarmy or socially unacceptable than the above and with no fewer P.R. resources—who get a near-mortal comeuppance. You've got the guys at Newsweek, pilloried for a minor factual flaw—indeed, the entire mainstream liberalish press is one big Dreyfus in the headlights. Then there's Lawrence Summers, the president of Harvard, torpedoed by his errant remarks, and Dan Rather, stripped of his standing and reputation. You have greedy Dick Grasso, in disrepute for his big pay package at the New York Stock Exchange. And pitiable Trent Lott, who lost his job for expressing his true self. And this is not even to mention the trials of a few dozen hapless C.E.O.'s.

http://www.vanityfair.com/commentary/content/articles/050711roco01

And then finally,

WELCOME TO DREAMSVILLE

Fifty years after Walt Disney opened his first theme park, the fantasy is fraying: creeps linger near Toontown, Tomorrowland is so yesterday, and Mickeys and Goofys get it on at Pleasure Island. Grab a seat on Dave Hickey's Wild Ride, as he joins the seekers at Disney World. Photographs by Todd Eberle

There isn't a link for this article but I have to share this one brief paragraph, Even an indept review of the Magic Kingdom presents the opportunity to discuss the Chimpmeister.

Talking about the Hall of President's display and Chimpy's contribution to the "show" -

(snip)

George W. Bush was the best. The audience at the morning show in the Hall of Presidents all agreed. So, it wasn't just me. It was also the two Latino dudes in yellow do-rags and Buccaneer jerseys. We were the audience. I had come for the educational uplift. The Buccaneers had come because they were getting their freaking money's worth - Disney security is so great, they had had to pay to get in. A music video about the Constitution opened the show. Its broad generational appeal was followed by a softly lit tête-à-tête with a coterie of animatronic American president arrange before us, standing and seated, like a corporate management team. Each "president" was introduced to us. Each favored us with a few animatronic words. Then the avatar of our current president stepped up to the plant and delivered a short homily that, I swear, the man might have written himself. One of the Buccaneers said, "That's the dude." and we all nodded in agreement. Of all the animatronic presidents, statesmen, heroes, and ordinary Joes we had seen, Dubya was the best. The oft cited defects of animatronic technology, the fact that it makes characters seem stiff and only intermittently lifelike, were no problem. Dubya was born to the medium and I was bewitched by the idea that presidents might evolve into animatrons rather than the other way around.

(snip)