Bundled Up for London

For John, BLUF:  The President gets to pick his Ambassadors, with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, and past political contributions are often a major consideration.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

I was upstairs and the cat, Bon Bon, was watching Fox News, where there was a discussion of the President's possible choice for Ambassador to the Court of Saint James.♠  The interesting thing is that the presumptive nominee was recently awarded the first ever Walter Duranty prize.  Here is the announcement:

Choosing the winner of the first Walter Duranty prize at first seemed daunting. As you have just heard, there were a great many richly qualified contenders. But as our prize committee worked through the entries, there was one dispatch that stood out. Not only did it exemplify the Duranty spirit, but it did so in ways so Potemkin, so self-absorbed and so extravagantly intent on peddling terror-linked dictatorship as an exercise in elegance and good taste, that we knew we had a winner.

This story was a joint accomplishment of writer and editor, so it is a shared award. The selection committee is pleased to bestow the Walter Duranty Prize for Journalistic Mendacity on reporter Joan Juliet Buck and editor Anna Wintour, for their combined feats of on-site reporting, headline packaging, impeccable timing, and fearless dismissal of the truth in Vogue magazine’s astounding March 2011 cover story: “Asma al-Assad: A Rose in the Desert.”

Styled as a profile of the first lady of Syria, Asma al-Assad, this article was a paragon of propaganda — a makeover of the Assad dictatorship, presenting Asma as the human face of President Bashar al-Assad’s rule: “glamorous, young and very chic.”

So, the best of British Luck to Ms Anna Wintour.  Ah yes, the last item in her Wikipedia entry circles back to the Walter Duranty Prize.

Oh, and Ms Wintour is a big time bundler.  It is the American way.

Hat tip to the Instapundit.

Regards  —  Cliff

♠  I don't know why they call it that, but we are talking Ambassador to the UK, which one would think is one of the top five posts out there (UK, Mexico, Canada, China and Russia).