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It's the Economy, Dummkopf!

Wed, 10 Aug 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Vanity Fair - By Michael Lewis - Aug. 10 (Special Report) - With Greece and Ireland in economic shreds, while Portugal, Spain, and perhaps even Italy head south, only one nation can save Europe from financial Armageddon: a highly reluctant Germany. The ironies—like the fact that bankers from Düsseldorf were the ultimate patsies in Wall Street’s con game—pile up quickly as Michael Lewis investigates German attitudes toward money, excrement, and the country’s Nazi past, all of which help explain its peculiar new status.

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Did Saudi Arabia Attack Us on 9/11?

Tue, 19 Jul 2011 00:00:00 -0700

readersupportednews.org - By Anthony Summers, Robbyn Swan - Jul. 19 (Investigative Report) - 'Was there a foreign government behind the 9/11 attacks? A decade later, Americans still haven't been given the whole story, while a key 28-page section of Congress's Joint Inquiry report remains censored. Gathering years of leaks and leads, in an adaptation from their new book, Anthony Summers and Robbyn Swan examine the connections between Saudi Arabia and the hijackers (15 of whom were Saudi), the Bush White House's decision to ignore or bury evidence, and the frustration of lead investigators - including 9/11-commission staffers, counterterrorism officials, and senators on both sides of the aisle.' Anthony Summers, Robbyn Swan, Vanity Fair

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The Dark Arts

Sun, 15 May 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Vanity Fair - May. 15 (News Report) - It started when the News of the World hacked into the voice mails of the British royal household, in 2005, touching off a scandal that Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp.—and, apparently, the British authorities—tried to contain. After a score of lawsuits and new arrests, the cover-up is falling apart.

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Of The 1%, By The 1%, For The 1%

Sat, 02 Apr 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Vanity Fair - By Joseph E. Stiglitz - Apr. 02 (Opinion) - Americans have been watching protests against oppressive regimes that concentrate massive wealth in the hands of an elite few. Yet in our own democracy, 1 percent of the people take nearly a quarter of the nation’s income—an inequality even the wealthy will come to regret.

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When Irish Eyes Are Crying

Sat, 05 Feb 2011 00:00:00 -0800

Vanity Fair - By Michael Lewis - Feb. 05 (Special Report) - First Iceland. Then Greece. Now Ireland, which headed for bankruptcy with its own mysterious logic. In 2000, suddenly among the richest people in Europe, the Irish decided to buy their country—from one another. After which their banks and government really screwed them. So where’s the rage?

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Tea’d Off

Thu, 09 Dec 2010 00:00:00 -0800

Vanity Fair - By Christopher Hitchens - Dec. 09 (Opinion) - It is often in the excuses and in the apologies that one finds the real offense. Looking back on the domestic political “surge” which the populist right has been celebrating since last month, I found myself most dispirited by the manner in which the more sophisticated conservatives attempted to conjure the nasty bits away.

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Beware of Greeks Bearing Bonds

Sun, 26 Sep 2010 11:24:44 -0700

Vanity Fair - By Michael Lewis - Sep. 26 (Special Report) - As Wall Street hangs on the question “Will Greece default?,” the author heads for riot-stricken Athens, and for the mysterious Vatopaidi monastery, which brought down the last government, laying bare the country’s economic insanity. But beyond a $1.2 trillion debt (roughly a quarter-million dollars for each working adult), there is a more frightening deficit. After systematically looting their own treasury, in a breathtaking binge of tax evasion, bribery, and creative accounting spurred on by Goldman Sachs, Greeks are sure of one thing: they can’t trust their fellow Greeks.

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Washington, We Have a Problem

Thu, 02 Sep 2010 00:00:00 -0700

Vanity Fair - By Todd Purdum - Sep. 02 (Investigative Report) - How broken is Washington? Beyond repair? A day in the life of the president reveals that Barack Obama’s job would be almost unrecognizable to most of his predecessors—thanks to the enormous bureaucracy, congressional paralysis, systemic corruption (with lobbyists spending $3.5 billion last year), and disintegrating media. Inside the West Wing, the author talks to Obama’s top advisers about the challenge of playing the Washington game, ugly as it has become, even while their boss insists they find a way to transcend it.

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Sarah Palin the Sound and the Fury

Thu, 02 Sep 2010 00:00:00 -0700

Vanity Fair - By Michael Joseph Gross - Sep. 02 (Investigative Report) - Even as Sarah Palin’s public voice grows louder, she has become increasingly secretive, walling herself off from old friends and associates, and attempting to enforce silence from those around her. Following the former Alaska governor’s road show, the author delves into the surreal new world Palin now inhabits—a place of fear, anger, and illusion, which has swallowed up the engaging, small-town hockey mom and her family—and the sadness she has left in her wake.

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The Man Who Tried To Manage Murdoch

Mon, 17 May 2010 00:00:00 -0700

Vanity Fair - By Sarah Ellison - May. 17 (Special Report) - As Rupert Murdoch's jaws closed around The Wall Street Journal, managing editor Marcus Brauchli became the latest in a long line of editors who thought they could win over the conquering mogul. Brauchli set about feverishly redesigning the paper while maneuvering to fend off Murdoch's designated publisher, Robert Thomson, and maintain the newsroom's independence. In an excerpt from her new book, the author—who covered the takeover while a reporter for the Journal—reveals how quickly and brutally the hope of the paper's old regime died.

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The Truth About Don Blankenship

Fri, 16 Apr 2010 00:00:00 -0700

Vanity Fair - By Michael Shnayerson - Apr. 16 (Opinion) - Last week, Diane Sawyer and other national reporters discovered what West Virginians have known for years: Don Blankenship is the Snidely Whiplash of coal, a larger-than-life figure so swaggering and creepy that his each next outrageous claim as chairman and C.E.O. of Massey Energy makes wonderful copy. But in the aftermath of the explosion that killed 29 at his Upper Big Branch mine an hour or so south of Charleston, they weren’t sure how to react when Don, in that soft Appalachian twang of his, declared Massey’s safety record better than the industry average, and said, in effect, that coal mining is a dangerous business and that accidents happen. Soon enough, they realized Don’s claim was flat wrong:

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The Professor of War

Fri, 02 Apr 2010 00:00:00 -0700

Vanity Fair - By Mark Bowden - Apr. 02 (Special Report) - At 57, General David Petraeus has revolutionized the way America fights its wars, starting with the surge in Iraq and continuing into his current command, with responsibility for Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran, and Yemen. Charting Petraeus’s relentless challenge to the institution he reveres—the U.S. Army—and to himself, the author hears about the unceasing drive, groundbreaking methods, and darkest moments of a four-star rebel.

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The Genesis 2.0 Project

Tue, 22 Dec 2009 00:00:00 -0800

Vanity Fair - By Kurt Andersen - Dec. 22 (Special Report) - Compared with the market-driven, killer-app insta-culture of the Digital Age, the new Large Hadron Collider exists in a near-magical realm, a $9 billion cathedral of science that is apparently, in any practical sense, useless. Exploring its whizbang machinery, deep underground, the author probes the collider’s brush with disaster last year—and the secrets it may soon unlock. Plus: More photos of the Large Hadron Collider.

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In Defense of Foxhole Atheists

Tue, 15 Dec 2009 00:00:00 -0800

Vanity Fair - By Christopher Hitchens - Dec. 15 (Special Report) - It’s no secret that conservative Christians dominate the U.S. military, but when higher-ups start talking about conversion missions, it’s time to worry. The author meets a group of soldiers who aren’t having it.

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Adam Ciralsky on Blackwater

Sun, 06 Dec 2009 00:00:00 -0800

Vanity Fair - By Adam Ciralsky - Dec. 06 (Special Report) - Erik Prince, recently outed as a participant in a C.I.A. assassination program, has gained notoriety as head of the military-contracting juggernaut Blackwater, a company dogged by a grand-jury investigation, bribery accusations, and the voluntary-manslaughter trial of five ex-employees, set for next month. Lashing back at his critics, the wealthy former navy seal takes the author inside his operation in the U.S. and Afghanistan, revealing the role he’s been playing in America’s war on terror.

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Todd S. Purdum on Henry Paulson

Mon, 21 Sep 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Vanity Fair - By Todd S. Purdum - Sep. 21 (Special Report) - Henry Paulson, then the Treasury secretary, in his office last September, the month Lehman fell and the bailout took shape. By Nigel Parry/CPi Syndication. It was February 2008, and Henry M. Paulson Jr., a prince of Wall Street turned secretary of the

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Good Billions After Bad

Fri, 11 Sep 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Vanity Fair - By Donald L. Barlett, James B. Steele - Sep. 11 (Special Report) - As the Bush administration waned, the Treasury shoveled more than a quarter of a trillion dollars in tarp funds into the financial system—without restrictions, accountability, or even common sense. The authors reveal how much of it ended up in the wrong hands, doing the opposite of what was needed.

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Is the Google Books Settlement Evil?

Sat, 29 Aug 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Vanity Fair - By Jennifer Massoni - Aug. 29 (Special Report) - “I think very few authors have any real idea what to do,” says novelist (and former lawyer) Meg Waite Clayton. “I’m resentful that I have to wade through forms to protect my rights. Unless I get a written notice from Random House, I think I’m contractually bound to opt out,” she says. Not so, says Paul Aiken, executive director of the Authors Guild: “Publishers were not cutting a deal that would put their in-print authors in violation of their contracts.” So which is it? For a third opinion, you can ask the settlement administrator, a Minneapolis-based consulting group, at www.googlebooksettlement.com.

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Palin's Resignation: The Edited Version

Mon, 20 Jul 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Vanity Fair - Jul. 20 (Comedy News) - If you watched Sarah Palin’s resignation speech, you know one thing: her high-priced speechwriters moved back to the Beltway long ago. Just how poorly constructed was the governor’s holiday-weekend address? We asked V.F.’s red-pencil-wielding executive literary editor, together with representatives from the research and copy departments, to whip it into publishable shape. Here is the colorful result.

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August 2009: Todd S. Purdum on Sarah Palin

Tue, 07 Jul 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Vanity Fair - Jul. 07 (News Report) - The pattern is inescapable: she takes disagreements personally, and swiftly deals vengeance on enemies, real or perceived. Illustration by Risko. The crowds begin streaming into the Evansville Auditorium and Convention Centre a couple of hours before

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Michael Wolff on Politico

Sat, 04 Jul 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Vanity Fair - By Michael Wolff - Jul. 04 (Special Report) - Four old-media veterans may have solved the future of news with the Politico Web site, whose audience of six million obsessives and insiders consumes–and feeds–a real-time download of power data. The twist? Politico’s print version is what’s helped make it profitable.

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A Media Guy Asks: Why Do They Hate Us?

Wed, 24 Jun 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Vanity Fair - By Matt Pressman - Jun. 24 (Opinion) - There’s no question media people think highly of themselves. We tend to be well-educated and worldly, and we consider ourselves worthy to help shape what the entire country reads, watches, and listens to. But what’s equally clear is that the general public does not hold us in such esteem. On the Internet, articles about the demise of traditional news media are commonly greeted with glee and schadenfreude. And it’s not just the online cranks. The Pew Research Center recently found that most Americans feel that the press is biased and inaccurate, and large percentages even said it was “immoral” and “hurts democracy.” So to borrow a phrase that became a media refrain in 2001: why do they hate us?

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Wall Street and the Third World

Sat, 13 Jun 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Vanity Fair - By Joseph Stiglitz - Jun. 13 (Opinion) - When the current crisis is over, the reputation of American-style capitalism will have taken a beating—not least because of the gap between what Washington practices and what it preaches. Disillusioned developing nations may well turn their backs on the free market

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Why Time and Newsweek Will Never Be The Economist

Thu, 23 Apr 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Vanity Fair - By Matt Pressman - Apr. 23 (Opinion) - While other magazines are hemorrhaging readers and laying off staff, The Economist's circulation has doubled in the past seven years and its ad pages have steadily increased, even as it remains unusually expensive to both readers and advertisers. But while raising subscription and newsstand prices might not be a bad idea, trying to imitate The Economist in other ways is a fool’s errand.

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Madoff's World

Fri, 03 Apr 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Vanity Fair - By Mark Seal - Apr. 03 (Investigative Report) - Among Bernard Madoff’s many dupes were his closest friends, including two tycoons he loved as surrogate fathers: the late Norman F. Levy—whose girlfriend, supermodel Carmen Dell’Orefice, would lose her life savings—and the prominent philanthropist Carl J. Shapiro. Amid the sobs, screams, and curses in Aspen, Palm Beach, and New York, with victims sharing their stories, the author gets behind Madoff’s affable façade, to reveal his most intimate betrayals.

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