Anna Wintour As Ambassadress to Syria!?! Springtime for Assad?

Anna wants London or Paris, but perhaps her broad understanding mind might best be employed in Damascus, if the Amateur-in-Chief is looking for the perfect fit.

I for one believe that James Taranto, emcee of the Walter Duranty Awards which are named in dishonorable memory of the NYT's wonderfully whacky chief Moscow correspondent who was awarded the Pulitzer in 1932 for calling the Ukrainian Holodomor an exaggeration and malignant propaganda. Wonder what this NYT stalwart thought about the Holocaust a decade-plus later...

James brings his characteristic light touch to the fore about Wintour and her famous infamous article in the spring of 2011 on the wonderful First Lady of Syria, Asma al Assad.

We are beginning to doubt whether Bashar Assad is a genuine reformer. Our latest clue comes from NBC News, which reported yesterday that "the Syrian military is prepared to use chemical weapons against its own people and is awaiting final orders from [dictator] Assad."

As of yesterday, "the nerve agents were locked and loaded inside the bombs," which "could be dropped onto the Syrian people from dozens of fighter-bombers," according to the NBC report. "U.S. officials stressed that as of now, the sarin bombs hadn't been loaded onto planes and that Assad hadn't issued a final order to use them." Well, that's a relief. Or not: "If he does [give the order], one of the officials said, 'there's little the outside world can do to stop it.' "

The international community is responding. "U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has written to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad urging him not to use chemical weapons," Reuters reports. Ban told the head of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons that "any use of such weapons would be an outrageous crime with dire consequences." Who knows, Moon may get angry enough to write a second letter. [!!!]

Here's Claudia Rosette's summary of the article on the beauteous Asma:

Ms. Buck, for whom Vogue obtained extraordinary access to the Assads, gushed about Asma as "the freshest and most magnetic of first ladies . . . breezy, conspiratorial, and fun . . . a thin long-limbed beauty with a trained analytic mind who dresses with cunning understatement." Ms. Buck treated her readers to visions of Asma waking at dawn to begin her charitable rounds, including her campaign urging millions of young Syrians to engage in "active citizenship." There were vignettes of Asma flying around Syria in a French-built corporate jet, or careening through traffic behind the wheel of a plain SUV, en route to museums, schools, and orphanages, a study in "energetic grace," deftly accessorized with little more than a necklace of Chanel agates; shoes and Syrian silk tote bag by French designer Christian Louboutin.

The exercise in hypergush was entitled "Asma al Assad: A Rose In The Desert" Read it in full HERE and I guarantee that in the light of ensuing slaughter and outright terror Asma's hubby has rained down on his people, your flesh may crawl.

Wintour has muttered a half-hearted apologia and Taranto added:

Further investigation suggested there was a dark side to the Assad family's activities.

This LINK will give you the rest of Taranto's withering commentary on the Wintour phenomenon that is probably unrivaled in its possibilities for satire if Anna actually is picked for Ambassadress to some unlucky polity.

Between Susan Rice and Ms Wintour's bony charm, the State Department will shine---although Kerry, with all his hatred for America sapped out, might possibly represent our country better from Foggy Bottom.