Graydon Carter

As an occasional reader of Vanity Fair I've become a witness to editor Graydon Carter's descent into madness. He seems to be affected by a particularly virulent strain of Bush Derangement Syndrome (almost on par with this guy) that has led him to write one editor's letter after another seething about President Bush. Indeed, if I recall correctly Carter said in one of his columns this year that he plans to write about Bush and expose his lies and whatever in every issue until he's out of office.

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Bush you'll recall, is not up for re-election. So while Carter's crusade is utterly pointless, I guess he will finally be able to claim victory in getting him out of the White House come 2009.

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To see what I mean about Carter's wackiness I refer you to last month's editor's letter in which he had the following to say about Iraq:

Forget comparisons to Vietnam. Iraq is increasingly looking like it may go down as one of the worst military blunders in history—up there with Little Bighorn and Balaklava.

I guess the Iraq as Vietnam meme has gone out the window -- now it's Iraq is worse than Vietnam. Interesting. I guess someone should clue in the Iraqi people about that one. Or maybe wait until next week -- it's seems they're busy voting in an election or something.

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Well, in the January 2006 issue Carter ups the ante. Check this out:

The Bush administration has plunged the country into two wars without end; taken a budget surplus in the hundreds of billions of dollars and turned it into a deficit in the hundreds of billions; bullied allies and enemies alike; and, at home, shredded Medicare, civil liberties, poverty programs, and 30 year's worth of environmental protections.

This is actually rather sickening. Plunged the country into two wars without end? Iraq, I'll give you. It was a war of choice. But Afghanistan? Earth to Carter, Bush didn't plunge us into that one, Al Qaeda did! Do you not remember September 11? Planes crashing into buildings. Thousands died. Collapse of the WTC towers. Ring any bells? I swear, it was in all the newspapers. By this logic FDR plunged us into a war with Japan.

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The deficit: Yeah, it sucks. I guess this means that Carter wishes Bush would take an axe to the budget since the problem isn't with tax revenue. Is he a closet small government conservative? Who knows? Who cares?

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As for the rest I'm not even sure how to respond given how non-specific he is. I guess in Carter-world an expansion of Medicare counts as shredding it and I'd like to know more about these cuts to poverty programs because it means I've been too hard on the Bushies -- one of my biggest problem has been the lack of such cuts. But I suppose when you're busy writing a screed that facts are beside the point.

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Update: Should have also mentioned that the "Iraq is worse than Vietnam" argument probably comes as a surprise to U.S. troops actually fighting there.