Syria, Vogue, and the Apologia of Joan Juliet Buck
But fate was cruel, and so were Buck’s interlocutors. Buck now recounts that she was deceived by the Assads; that she expressed pre-publication misgivings which she says were ignored by Vogue; and when Vogue asked her not to talk about her piece, “I kept my word and did not speak to the press.” Nonetheless, at the end of 2011 Vogue did not renew her contract. Apparently those were desperate times: “I was now free to react to the Syrian carnage with the only medium I had: Twitter.”
Fascinating. But all this implies a set of priorities in which it was more important to pander to fashion (or at least to Vogue) than it was to tell the truth about a murderous tyranny.
And what Buck wrote, in her “Rose of the Desert” rhapsody on Asma, was not actually a piece about fashion, or culture. It was a high-profile paragon of political propaganda, presenting the Assad regime as open, glamorous, vibrant, led by a refreshingly democratic first family, shod by Christian Louboutin, and accessorized ever so tastefully with Syrian silk and Chanel. All this came on the heels of reports the previous year that Asma al-Assad had invited the Obamas to dignify the Assad regime with a U.S. presidential visit to Damascus — subject of a fawning article in 2010 on the Huffington Post (dwelling on the charms of Asma’s “natural look and classic style”). Whether Asma’s decision to host a writer from Vogue had anything to do with trying to entice the Obamas to Syria, we don’t know. But Buck’s coverage, long on enticements and lean on realities, would hardly have been a deterrent.
What about the use of the medieval torture rack in Syrian prisons, the terrorists bunking down in the capital, and the North Koreans testing missiles out back? In Buck’s story for Vogue, such matters were either glossed over in passing (Syria, “a place without bombings, unrest or kidnappings, but its shadow zones are dark and deep”) or figured as intriguing bric-a-brac (“There are souvenir Hezbollah ashtrays in the souk and you can spot the Hamas leadership racing through the bar of the Four Seasons.”)
If Buck was unhappy, as she says she was, with Vogue’s plans to run the piece, or with the headline Vogue gave it, she had options other than compliance and silence. She could have pulled the piece before it ran, or publicly recanted and apologized as soon as it came out. Instead, more than a year later, she now explains: “I didn’t want to write this piece. But I always finished what I started.”
By these lights, she was the victim. Faithful to Vogue, faithful to her own work ethic (and her desire to see the ruins of Palmyra). They made her do it!
She only following Anna Wintour’s orders.
She desperately wants Obama to yell, “You didn’t write that!”
Let’s put the main blame where it belongs, on the whole left-wing establishment at Vogue and their clones. This was done with the Berlin Olympics also.
Thank you for pointing that fact out.
The airheads who become celebrities, such as rock stars, movie stars, fashion gurus, etc., remain airheads even after they attain celebrity status. Their attempts to assert themselves as leaders who move people in leftist political directions arises from the Marxist theories of how to use the mass media to influence public opinion and these people are used by Marxists to carry out leftist strategies in the mass media.
Cleverness in attaining status as a celebrity is confused nowadays with intelligence.
Maybe if she was a little more concerned with the facts and a little less concerned with stupid,pigheaded,insignificant details like what clothes they were wearing and their home decor,she would have seen that the red flags going up all over the place weren’t part of some post-modern decoration scheme.Kudos to the author for holding her feet to the fire. All too often women escape responsibility and justice is not served because they successfully play the “dupe”. Well, the law has a term for it when people should have noticed something before it turned into a tragedy but didn’t, it’s called “criminal negligence”. I emphasize the criminal part,because that’s what Buck is,a criminal who is complicit in whitewashing a murderous dictator.
“I was curious…Syria gave off a toxic aura. But what was the worst that could happen? I would write a piece for Vogue that missed the deeper truth about its subject.”
Yeah, that or you would misinform millions who might want to assist the victims of this murderous regime if they knew the real facts. Of course,you didn’t care about any of that, what was REALLY important was what kind of clothes the First Lady of Satan was wearing.
Yes, the Assad regime is terrible, but the opposition supported by Turkey, Saudi Arabia, the EU and the US are much worse. Who is blowing up Churches in Syria and killing Christians? It’s not the Syrian Army, it’s the terrorists that the US is backing. The terrorists kill Christians then the Western media predictably blames the Syrian government.
The western media hates christians in the west as well, but we are many, armed and know them for what they are.
The current US administration is backing this, but not the majority of Americans.
“Awwww… She’s a victim…”
– Sam Kinison
Sure stinks to be lied to by a dictator’s wife, right Vogue? Just shows you how liberals are used as useful idiots by dictators and killers. The Palestinians have been doing it for years now, only the liberal mainstream media still has not caught on to that yet. You can literally “dress up” any dictator’s wife, but it doesn’t make the dictator any less of a dictator, as Assad is showing right now. What’s next for Vogue, doing a feature article on the wife of Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe? She’s both black AND a dictator’s wife. What’s not to “love?” If she dresses well, Vogue will treat her like royalty. The fools.
The hooker that cried rape.
What Ms. Buck is really upset about is losing here job at a prestigious swanky American periodical, the pay, prestigue and invite to the elite.
Im certain if she was still employed by Vogue that she would be happily enjoying her Starbucks lattes on the way to work quietly as a cowardly, unprincipled, sycophant lickspittle. Maybe she can get a job at The New York Times?
“Credit Joan Juliet Buck that she has shed her infatuation with the “fun” first lady of Syria. But her current confessions, coming this late in the day, dwelling as they do on how she was “duped,” seem less about setting the record straight on Syria than about distancing herself from responsibility for one of the most mortally embarrassing pieces of journalism produced in recent times.”
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Let’s give credit where credit is due. At least Buck finally saw the error in her ways – kinda, sorta. That’s more than we can say for Walter Duranty, the pride of the New York Times. Despite Stalin killing people by the hundreds of thousands, Duranty continued to downplay and soften the misery Stalin was inflicting. I’m not aware of him EVER publicly recanting, although it is clear from his private conversations that he was indeed aware of the reality of what was going on.
Try “millions of lives” and you’ll be closer to the truth.
Buck was a useful dupe, nothing more.
And the only person startled by this realization is herself…
There is a measure of truth to what she says. She wrote the article, but at the behest of others at Vogue, and none of them seem to have had any difficulties, say, in staying employed. Anna Wintour, for instance, just had dinner with the Prez himself, and still runs the magazine. It’s pretty clear that Ms. Buck has been singled out as the “fall girl” for the rest of the magazine’s editorial staff, who made the decision to send her there in the first place, and probably edited the article in the direction that they wanted.
You have to wonder about the people who will write about a Mrs. Assad or whoever, and go on about how glamorous they are. It’s as if the mobster’s wife somehow humanizes the husband, and makes him into a sort of Middle Eastern Tony Soprano. I never watched that show either, couldn’t see the appeal of “humanizing” mobsters who murder people and exploit the rest of the world to enrich themselves. Perhaps I just don’t get why these people should be admired…
When found out, the useful idiots always claim that they were pure in heart and were “duped.”
Not duped, but dupes. They talked about all the cool stuff in school and didn’t pay attention to the real stuff that we nerds did. Why should I read anything by someone so woefully ignorant about basics facts of the world?
all the progs are like that. they don’t do personal responsibility.
On the surface the Assads and her have a pretty good case. You can spin the story out this way.
This man, whose real love was medicine inherited a responsibility. Sure, it was not a western democracy but Syria, fractionated as it is, was not ready for that. He kept out of major war with Israel. He enforced an achievable level of religious and civil rights (except for Jews but they do not count), and economy was not terrible.
He had to make some tough calls to keep away the Al Queda types but the proof is now in the pudding. Soon as he loses control they come in and this results.
His wife lived the same as most US first ladies. She got nothing but positive feedback for her visits to schools and favorite causes. She is stunning in her outfits and charming as a woman can be.
They must be in a state of confusion now. They thought they were beloved protectors of Syria. Keeping their fragile state alive in a sea of adversity. Where did they go wrong?
I am the last person to have any good wishes for Assad. He missed his chances, he blew it. I do think that he is not going down easy. Syria is screwed and everyone who has anything to worry about that is screwed in the process.
There are no good choices now for anyone. Assads are going away and a new Syria does not look better.
Fortress Israel gets more defensive. I worry about that.
Syrais is about the most repressive country in the world, outside of North Korea. As far as “Fortress Israel” is concerned, you have no idea how much power the unelected left has in this country, party funded by foreign powers, with the EU. Just hope we don’t do something stupid like give up the Golan.
Sure it is but the point I was trying to make is that guys like Assad live in a bubble of their own creation surrounded by syncophants. My impression is that he is not an act. He really thinks he is doing the right thing for Syria. It is easy to see how she got taken in by them.
Israel should never even think about giving up the Golan.
Maybe the silly dupee will learn from this, and kick off the yoke of progressive idiocy? Of course, if she does, she’ll have to give up any hope of working for most of the traditional liberal media, which is now moving even further left. But up the up-side, she’d be mimicing some illustrious neo-lights of the center right, like David Horowitz, David Mamet, and Eric Allen Bell, all of whom seem to be fairly successful in their writing careers, these days.
Stop being a victim, Joan, and start paying attention to what’s really going on.
Ye gods — all the Lefties are victims! Doesn’t anyone in that cesspool stand on their own two feet and take responsibility for their actions and ideas?
Even when they are duped (made to look like fools, even though they are the ‘smartest ones on the planet’), it’s always someone else’s fault. I am so tired of people who will not wake up or grow up.
Like most woolly-headed leftists, Joan deceived herself.
And there, friends, in one equation, we fully comprehend the composition of the leftist ilk: 10% willful deceivers, 90% willfully ignorant.
Now all we need is an apology from Barry for appointing an ambassador to Syria w/o extracting any concessions so that he could suck up to Iran.
This is an excellent article. I am very grateful that sites like this exist, to serve as sources of intelligent and truthful information.
The legacy media has become little more than a continuous stream of insulting, idiotic lies. And they have dumbed down so much they are simply not worth listening to, or reading.
Y’know what I think? It wouldn’t surprise me if she didn’t write the article at all, and the copy was given to her by the Syrian government. Sure beats working for a living.
Dear God, this woman wasn’t born yesterday. How could she NOT know who the Assad family are?
This just proves my point that the fashion industry is filled with ignorant loons.
“Besides, as she notes, she was taking a road to Damascus already trodden by such pioneers as Rep. Nancy Pelosi, Senator John Kerry, Sting, Angelina Jolie, Brad Pitt, and Francis Coppola; as well as a public relations firm hired by the Assads, Brown Lloyd James (which took care of her Syria visa).”
The fact that she was following down the same road as the above mentioned should have given her pause.
In enjoyed the Ben Stiller movie, “ZOOLANDER” which parodies the lack of intelelctual depth amoungst fashionistas.
Ms. Buck and Anna Wintour could very well be characters from that movie.
Vanity Fair did the same thing years ago, with King Hussein’s wife.
This ‘confession’ doesn’t redeem her. It permanently discredits her. She saw what was going on and said nothing, as long as she was being paid by Vogue. To say now that she was ‘duped’ isn’t an excuse. It proves she is incapable of intelligent reporting. Let her go find a job at Starbucks.
And who looks to Vogue for anything resembling news?
As soon as this story came out, I stopped buying Vogue and encouraged others to do the same. Anyone who follows foreign policy knows that the Assad Regime has been murderous for decades. They have also spread their murderous ways to Lebanon in an attempt to destroy Democracy in that country. This was a despicable article and the only reaction on the author’s part should have been a complete apology and no excuses.
Hitler loved his dog. Classic “Nice defeats evil” wish bubble thinking.
Every decent feeling Hitler ever had came with an expiration date.
To ensure that the cyanide capsules that he and the newly minted Mrs. Hitler would soon take were effective, he first tried it out on his beloved Alsatian dog Blondi. Worked like a charm, according to reports.
Does that remind you of anyone of recent or current memory?
one of the most mortally embarrassing pieces of journalism produced in recent times
Another commenter already mentioned Walter Duranty of NYT. It occurs to this reader that Buck’s piece for Vogue and the present article work together to put Duranty’s crime in the shade. I doubt that is Ms. Rosett’s intention, but let us not forget. Stahlin, whose influence on American culture from the 30s onward is far greater, makes Assad look like a Sunday school teacher. I recommend the book Bloodlands by Timothy Snyder (Basic Books, 2010), and the essay “The Legacy of the 30s” by Robert Warshow (from Commentary, December 1947, now in The Immediate Experience by Warshow, Harvard Press, 2001).