The Party of Glitz & GlamorNoemie Emery describes the
transmutation of the Democrats from the party of the working man to the party of the jetset, led by magazines like Vanity Fair.
After the election, when the American Prospect and the New Republic were engaged in solemn bouts of soul-searching, the glossies indulged in new bouts of hysteria. "There will be a draft," imagined New York's James Atlas: "The polar ice caps will melt. . . . The Patriot Act will be used to stifle dissent in the media. . . . Jews will be rounded up." "Rounding up Jews" might not seem to compute with Bush's being a captive of neocons, but logic is not the strong suit of this faction. What Bush seems to be facing is less the normal opposition of a traditional part of the political class than a visceral uprising among fashionistas, a vast metrosexual spasm on behalf of a self-image based on cultural preening. "Read it all; this is one of those articles where every paragraph cries out to be snipped and posted. The good news is in the opening paragraph: "[N]ewsstand sales for the magazine Vanity Fair... plummeted by 22.5 percent during the last half of 2004...."
Hat Tip: Lucianne (can't seem to put the link in now due to blogger).