Graydon Carter’s War: The Mind of a Great Editor Is a Terrible Thing To Waste (By Russ Smith)

New York Sun ^ | February 2, 2004 | Russ Smith

[Timesink]

Graydon Carter’s War

The Mind of a Great Editor Is a Terrible Thing To Waste

By RUSS SMITH Mr. Smith writes weekly columns for New York Press and Baltimore’s City Paper.


I wonder when Vanity Fair editor Graydon Carter is going to wake up from his increasingly public nightmare.

Mr. Carter, a charming and intelligent man, has clearly not come to grips with the stark reality, as Spy magazine would’ve said 15 years ago, that the go-go 1990s are over and the gaudy colors that washed over that decade have given way to black and white. In fact, Mr. Carter’s very prominence, not only in gossip columns but as the subject of a recent New York Times news article, is a rare example of nostalgia for an era when larger-than-life editors overshadowed the contents of their own publications.

As a longtime admirer of Mr. Carter — not only for his part in founding the short-lived but seminal Spy and his steady tenure at Vanity Fair, but also for his personal kindness to me over the years — I’m baffled by his relatively sudden transformation from a purveyor of satire, celebrity, and keen cultural criticism to a disgruntled scold who appears headed for a nervous breakdown.

After all, it wasn’t so long ago that, asked why he published Gail Sheehy’s interminable essays of political psychobabble, Mr. Carter professed that Vanity Fair had no partisan agenda and was merely printing diverse points of view. Certainly, his fluffy “Editor’s Letter” each month in those pre-9/11 days rarely contained any hint of activism. Instead, like most any other, it breezily highlighted one or two notable features in the current magazine.

At one time Mr. Carter appeared more concerned with staging lavish Hollywood parties than taking on Paul Wolfowitz. Now, he’s become a far more stylish and affluent version of Dennis Kucinich, ranting month after month about the Bush administration’s invasion of Iraq and alleged curtailment of civil liberties. Last November, Mr. Carter went so far as to call New York Times op-ed columnist Paul Krugman — an economic expert turned truly paranoid political pundit — a “national treasure.”

In five recent “Editor’s Letters,” Mr. Carter has blitzed President Bush and his Cabinet for the Iraq war, offering opinions that range from standard-issue outrage over the U.S. not locating weapons of mass destruction to sheer delusion about the motives of the administration.The following snippets are just a small sampling of Mr. Carter’s current mindset:


• “The war in Iraq is not a minor scandal; it may well prove to be the biggest scandal in American politics in the last hundred years” (August 2003).

Not to quibble, but even some Democrats would argue that deposing Saddam Hussein’s brutal regime was less a “scandal” than Watergate.


• “My feeling is this: deceit or untrustworthiness on the part of lawmakers has a tendency to catch up with them. It just takes time — and the tenacity of journalists and of other lawmakers. A prediction: starting soon, even aboveboard administration officials will begin to disappear. My money would be on Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and C.I.A. Director George Tenet” (September).

I hope Mr. Carter didn’t bet his annual Condé Nast expense account on that prediction.


• “Throughout the war on terror and the one in Iraq, the White House has continually played with the truth. National security is a reasonable justification for some obfuscation at a time like this. But the administration is quick to label any who would question its motives or actions as unpatriotic” (October).


• “The quagmire in Iraq, the growing encroachment on civil liberties here, a flagging economy, our standing abroad — it all seems unnecessary and brutally unforgiving. Why is it that every statement out of the Bush administration, when put through even the briefest scrutiny, appears to be built on a foundation of falsehoods or outright deception?” (November).


• “The death count — of coalition forces as well as Iraqi citizens — is out of control.The White House still won’t allow U.S. soldiers the dignity of having their caskets filmed or photographed upon returning home. As of this writing, the president has yet to attend a single funeral of an American killed in action.” (January 2004.)

How to account for Mr. Carter’s hyperbolic assessment of Mr. Bush’s tenure in office? It could be Mr. Bloomberg’s war against smoking in New York City.That dubious initiative is one that not only has severe economic repercussions but also — unlike the Patriot Act — really does encroach upon a citizen’s privacy.

As noted in the January 18 Times article, Mr. Carter has received three summonses for lighting up at his West 42nd Street office, an affront that’s left the editor sputtering in contempt. He told reporter Jennifer Steinhauer: “It is an important issue. It is about freedom and your own civil liberties, and it is about the city.This is not Denver, it is not Seattle, it is a big, rough turbine that is fueled by cigarette smoke and food and liquor.”

This anger (justified, I believe, in regard to Mr. Bloomberg) is a new incarnation for Mr. Carter. Unlike Rolling Stone proprietor Jann Wenner, whose career has evolved from a rock ’n’ roll groupie with a brilliant music-magazine idea to a multimillionaire, eat-the-rich impresario who now dotes more obsequiously on Howard Dean — and soon John Kerry — than Mick Jagger, the Vanity Fair editor has traditionally taken a personal apolitical stance.

And, for his trouble, Mr. Carter receives little support from his press brethren. A January 21 editorial in the New York Observer (a paper he once edited) chastised him in words just as harsh as those Mr. Carter directs against Mr. Bush.The unbearably self-righteous screed read, in part: “Graydon Carter, what are you up to? Put a rein on your bloated ego and stop being a pompous ass.… Perhaps Mr. Carter should chat with some of the waiters who serve him his four-star dinners.They could explain to him that making a living off tips is hard enough without having to inhale toxic cigarette smoke all night.Wake up, Graydon, and smell the nicotine! The life your Mayor is trying to save is, despite your irritating arrogance, your own.”

Goodness! You’d think such an outburst — undoubtedly written by a reformed smoker — was in reaction to Mr. Carter calling for the president’s impeachment. Which, come to think of it, might be coming up in the March issue of Vanity Fair. CRIONA CULLEN & SUSAN MAHONEY

[Timesink]

Triple ping!

Schadenfreude

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[veronica]

Vanity Fair has become unreadable.

Between vapid PR puff-pieces about Hollywood stars and endless Bush-bashing, it's really gone downhill.

It used to be fun at least. No more. I read "W" (formerly Women's Wear Daily") now, instead.

[COUNTrecount]

Please add me to the Vanity Fair list.Thanks.

[lainde]

bttt

[NYCVirago]

The unbearably self-righteous screed read, in part: “Graydon Carter, what are you up to? Put a rein on your bloated ego and stop being a pompous ass.… Perhaps Mr. Carter should chat with some of the waiters who serve him his four-star dinners.They could explain to him that making a living off tips is hard enough without having to inhale toxic cigarette smoke all night.Wake up, Graydon, and smell the nicotine! The life your Mayor is trying to save is, despite your irritating arrogance, your own.”

I think Graydon Carter's a pompous twit, but he's right in thinking the smoking ban is nuts. And obviously, the person writing about suffering waiters doesn't actually know any -- most waiters and bartenders are against the smoking ban, because smokers tend to spend more and tip more!

[Ciexyz]

Now it's understandable when Vanity Fair lets cover boys like Viggo Mortenson (Lord of the Rings) spout anti-Iraq war rhetoric.

[GOPJ]

Insightful:

I think Graydon Carter's a pompous twit, but he's right in thinking the smoking ban is nuts. And obviously, the person writing about suffering waiters doesn't actually know any -- most waiters and bartenders are against the smoking ban, because smokers tend to spend more and tip more!