Defense of Ridiculed Vogue Profile of Assad Leads to More Ridicule

By AMY CHOZICK

“Syria. The name itself sounded sinister, like syringe or hiss.”

That's what the author Joan Juliet Buck wrote in the Aug. 6 edition of Newsweek in an article describing why she felt uneasy profiling Syria's first lady, Asma al-Assad, in Vogue last year.

In her article - “How I Was Duped by Mrs. Assad” - Ms. Buck explains how she ended up reluctantly writing the flattering Vogue profile that brought the magazine scrutiny amid the Assad government's reign of violence in Syria. But some of her explanations as to why she felt “Syria gave off a toxic aura” have set off fresh criticism.

On Tuesday, a Twitter meme with the hashtag  #countriesbyvoguewriters circulated. Messages included: “Chad. The name itself sounded like my Lehman Brothers ex-boyfriend.” And “Bahrain. Sounds like the expression of disappointment someone going to a picnic makes when the weather changes.”

Ms. Buck also wrote tha t she felt “uneasy” in Damascus. “Mustached men stood in our path, wearing shoes from the 1980s and curiously ill-fitting leather jackets over thick sweaters,” she said.

Even though Ms. Buck has severed her relationship with Vogue, to many readers the description just felt so, well, Vogue.

Doug Saunders, European bureau chief for The Globe and Mail of Toronto posted to Twitter: “Newsweek gave the author of the infamous Asma-al-Assad Vogue profile about 3,000 words of rope. She used every inch.”

Britain's Guardian said “somehow the mea culpa is almost as disastrous as the initial interview.”

In the 3,200-word Vogue story (“A Rose in the Desert”), Ms. Buck called Mrs. Assad “the freshest and most magnetic of first ladies” and described her walking through Damascus as “a determined swath cut through space with the flash of red soles,” a reference to her Christian Louboutin shoes. (The article, whi ch was taken down from Vogue's Web site in the spring, can still be found online here. )

In June, Vogue's editor, Anna Wintour, issued a statement to The New York Times deploring the actions of the Assad government. “Subsequent to our interview, as the terrible events of the past year and a half unfolded in Syria, it became clear that its priorities and values were completely at odds with those of Vogue,” Ms. Wintour said.

Ms. Buck has spent much of her time since the dust-up over the Vogue story denouncing the Assad government, to Piers Morgan on CNN among others. In April, she told National Public Radio - by way of explaining why Mrs. Assad was a good candidate for a profile - that she was “extremely thin and very well-dressed and therefore qualified to be in Vogue.”

Ms. Buck declined to comment. A spokesman for Newsweek/Daily Beast said: “Joan Juliet Buck's revealing and candid Newsweek magazine piece on her time spent with Mrs. Assad speaks fo r itself.”

Amy Chozick is The Times's corporate media reporter. Follow @amychozick on Twitter.