This month, readers receive a very special missive from editor Graydon Carter at the outset — or should we say onset — of October's Vanity Fair. Mr. Carter is as mad as a lesbian separatist at a salami convention. Incongruously, he looks plenty relaxed in this month's editorial photo. He appears quite tanned and smiley, dressed casually, looking not unlike the nice uncle that you never thought would molest you. But no, Mr. Carter is mad enough about the Bush administration flying bin Laden's family out of the U.S. in the days after September 11th, 2001, in fact, to compare President Bush to Hitler and the White House's political philosophy to Hermann Göring's. This is quite far afield from Mr. Carter's pleasantly Rooney-esque railings against Bloomberg's anti-smoking laws and the sad state of cashmere socks.

The intrusion of articulate politics at the Conde Nast offices freaks us out. One wonders: what political horror confronted the once-pleasantly cranky Mr. Carter this summer? And was it a tagteam rough-up by Clooney and Soderbergh? We know how totally aggro they get. Please drop us a line and 'splain, Mr. C. We're concerned.
[Vanity Fair, October]