Vanity Fair beats up on teenagers

I admire Vanity Fair’s James Wolcott, his cultural criticism is incisive, witty, etc. etc. etc.

Caveat over.

Like so many others, however, he has an Israel jones. Why, who knows. It’s a) above my paygrade to read his mind and b) he’s entitled to his opinion.

He needs to be called out, though, when he beats up on the defenseless, as he does here when he essentially accuses Rabbi David Nesenoff and his son Adam — who is 17 — of "stinging" Helen Thomas:

Now that the flash-mob tribunal has dispersed, it’s worth taking a longer lensed look at how the fuse was lit and the bad faith of her journalistic jury.

To make his case, he quotes a Tufts professor, Gary Leupp, writing at Counterpunch:

Who by the way is this "live rabbi"? Who is this rabbi character who’s terminated the career of a Washington press icon? How many journalists are even asking?

(snip)

Why did this happen in the first place? Was this for a school project? Are there other filmed interviews young Adam would like to share, to prove that he and his friend were really fact "asking everybody" and not just Helen?

Geez Louise, can someone please inform me how folks advance in U.S. academe without figuring out Google, or even how to click through?

I wrote my tick-tock about how the Nesenoffs happened to be at the White House the day Leupp posted his screed, but Howard Kurtz had his at the Washington Post  that morning — they were there to cover Jewish American Heritage Month festivities. The younger Nesenoff bagged a press entry because of his Shmoozepoint interactive Jewish news site — the JAHM event was chockablock with young Jews.

And as for proof that Thomas was not their only interlocutor, click through on the rabbi’s website to the "Israel Breathes" videos. Six videos, asking the same thing.

I mean, "Young Adam." Sheesh. Leupp also tries to make something of the comment, "Helen is fun!" although it comes from the woman who was accompanying her, not the rabbi, Adam or Adam’s young friend.

Leupp also wonders why Nesenoff didn’t post the entire video. The interesting thing is, the longer video — longer by less than a minute — posted afterwards by Nesenoff, reinforces the poignancy of the moment. He starts out asking, "Any advice for these young people here starting out in the press corps?"

He’s a Dad showing off his kid — My boy wants to be a journalist! The look on the youngster’s face as the clip ends — I don’t know if its Adam or his friend — says it all.

Wolcott doesn’t think this goes far enough and makes fun of the appearance of Rabbi Nesenoff’s website, although he has already cited Leupp noting that it is Adam — 17-year-old Adam — who is the webmaster:

I looked at the site [no link: I refuse to accept responsibility for sending any unsuspecting soul into its abyss] and it is one garbagey-looking, mind-scrawling outhouse.

Woo-hoo! Why stop there? A simple Google-image search might bring up pictures of the kid! Maybe he’s funny-looking!

What makes all of this worse is that I’ve heard similar rumblings about an "ambush" and a "siege" in DC, on the left and among reporters.

Helen Thomas was the author of her own miseries, however sad it might be that these ended her career. She was not quite "powerless," as Salon’s Glenn Greenwald would have it; she had a perch at Hearst from which to pontificate. She had front row center in the White House press room. She had the first question.

Vanity Fair is a perch. JTA is also a perch, though one not quite as vaunted. One thing I came into this perch with, though, was a pledge that I would take on only those of my own size, or bigger.

It’s a lesson Wolcott could learn.