Perhaps it's indicative of the New York City bubble in which we live that upon seeing the word "Blair" in a Drudge Report headline, I think "Jayson" instead of "Tony" and wonder what weapons-dossier-related grievances the tobacco-Fields-spotting fabulist would possibly have with the BBC. Vanity Fair seems to have acquired the same Manhattan microcosm affectation for the August issue and with exception of the cover story [vapid *sputter* boring *gag* Kennedys], I actually like it. (Yeah, I'm as loathe to say it as you are to hear it.) It's completely Manhattan-centric and parts of it areoh my godsnarky. There's an eviscerating two page review of chef Jean-Georges Vongerichten's pseudo-Chinese restaurant 66 in which reviewer A.A. Gill refers to the shrimp-and-foie-gras dumplings as "fishy-liver filled condoms" and a beautiful essay by James Wolcott on how the crime committed by Jayson Blair and Stephen Glass was that they ruined sucking up for everyone. [Listed as a "notable suckup" in the latter essay: "a certain former editor, who on the debut of her CNBC talk show hailed Barry Diller as the 'daddy cool' of business and Bill O'Reilly as 'the king of cable' and made even a commoner like Malcolm Gladwell feel like Queen for a day."] There's also a feature on society photographer Patrick McMullan's 80s party pics from various clubs in Manhattan that looks vaguely like Radar's article on Area from their first issue and a Christopher Hitchens essay in which he notes that forcing himself to contemplate President the 43rd's choice of Jesus over liquor pushes him "well above my pay grade at this magazine." No one in the Vanity Fair demographic is going to have any idea what they're talking about, but I think it's brilliant.