After, presumably, watching (or hearing about) Todd Purdum’s CNN appearance, where he defending against allegations his article on Bill Clinton “insinuated” anything, VF editor Graydon Carter finally got around to weighing in on the controversy: “The responses from the former president and his camp are very saddening in their own ways. Characteristic, but nevertheless shocking.” [NYO]
It’s just like when we learned Graydon was smoking again. Characteristic, but nevertheless shocking.
Gina Gershon is lying in the same bed as Bill Clinton. But not in the way you think!
In fact, if you were thinking that way, then you’ll understand the whole reason Gershon is complaining about Todd Purdum’s Vanity Fair article in the same way Clinton was: Because she claims the insinutations made about her – that she enjoyed the romantic company of the ex-president – aren’t true. So she’s got her mouth-off-y lawyers at Lavely & Singer demanding VF issue a retraction for a story … that just keeps on giving.
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Vanity Fair yesterday trotted out Todd Purdum, the author of the 10,000-word Bill Clinton piece “The Comeback Id” article,” on CNN’s The Situation Room, where Wolf Blitzer read passages from the Clinton camp’s lengthy response, and Purdum had a chance to defend himself against accusations that he penned what amounts to an egregiously long gossip column.
Below, we’re going to quote a few big chunks from his CNN interview. But one general theme is clear: Purdum’s defense against the ex-president’s rebuttal is that he doesn’t insinuate anything about Clinton; he simply is reporting some of the concerns about people who know Clinton.
Know what that sounds like? Jossip’s entire M.O.
We don’t always care about the facts of a story; we care whether insiders are pushing one gossip tidbit or another, because the mere presence of somebody’s agenda is, to us, newsworthy. If whatever piece of information a source is pushing turns out to be true, fantastic — but the inner workings of the gossip industry is what always gets our attention.
Vanity Fair, however, does not stoop to this “low,” as some might describe it. The magazine aims to be an upstanding, above-the-fray news source. But it’s very arguable that Purdum’s story did nothing but stir the gossip mill, push insiders’ agendas, and make for very interesting inside baseball commentary. And it will sell magazine’s for Graydon Carter and Conde Nast. But it will not help brand the magazine’s reputation in authenticity.
True, reporters need not “insinuate” anything. The facts of the matter should do that. But basing your entire pitch on, say, doctors who have never treated Clinton is like a celebrity tabloid, well, doing the exact same thing.
And with that, Purdum’s defense:
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God bless those embed reporters. Some are armed with handheld video cameras. Others? Audio recorders. Which made for this fine clip of Bill Clinton responding to Todd Purdum’s Vanity Fair article — which he sort of already did with that lengthy-ass letter. But now Clinton is saying things like: “[Purdum is] sleazy. He’s a really dishonest reporter. And one of our guys talked to him . . . And I haven’t read [the article]. But he told me there’s five or six just blatant lies in there. But he’s a real slimy guy. […] Let me tell ya– he’s one of the guys — he’s one of the guys that propagated all those lies about Whitewater to Kenneth Starr. He’s just a dishonest guy– can’t help it.”
And that’s when he brought up David Granger.
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J.C., Clinton!
After Vanity Fair’s long expose – a writearound, in fact, given that Bill Clinton refused to participate – in the July issue, which is getting more play thanks to the voluptuous Angelina Jolie gracing the cover, the ex-president’s camp appears to have copy/pasted from its defense playbook, countering the article and the magazine that has a “penchant for libel.”
Todd Purdum’s article arrives just in time, because at some point this week, wife Hillary will be an after-thought as Barack Obama champions toward November, and our focus, genuinely, jumps to Obama vs McCain.
So while the public can still be relied upon for its interest in the Clintons, VF hits with “The Comeback Id,” which opens with a not-so-kind portrayal of Clinton and his skeevy friends, like Ron Burkle, owner of the plane “Air Fuck One,” and Steve Bing, whose favorite pastime is litigation. (Though there is this line: “In fairness, it should be said that Clinton???s entourage that weekend also included his daughter, Chelsea, and her boyfriend, Marc Mezvinsky, and no one who was there has adduced the slightest evidence that Clinton???s behavior was anything other than proper.”)
The article, all nearly 10,000 words of it, which jumps around from his presidency and his scandals to his new sources of income and his role in his wife’s campaign, can be summed up in this way: “What???s the matter with him?”
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