Anna Wintour as US ambassador is a step too far

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/dec/09/anna-wintour-not-fit-for-us-ambassador

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Like the return of the cape, the rumour that Anna Wintour is going to be appointed US ambassador in London has become one of those bits of news that seems to surface most seasons, to be greeted with a similar measure of scorn and disbelief. Seriously? Can we please stop pretending this is ever going to happen? Isn't Anna the Ambassador, like the idea that women are idiotic enough to invest in an ugly, camel-coloured shoulder-cosy that leaves most of the body exposed to prevailing weather conditions, just one of those fantasies that fashion has to keep circulating, with scant regard for practicalities, in order to create an impression of feverish activity and relevance?

But this year the speculation that Obama is indeed thinking of rewarding this top fundraiser has been convincing enough, unlike the cape revival, to provoke impassioned, pre-emptive criticism. Relevant specialists and patriots are concerned that the current US ambassador, a fellow Obama "bundler" whose name will surely be familiar to all, should be replaced by a person with equally sober credentials.

Nile Gardiner, described by the Telegraph as a "Washington-based foreign affairs analyst", writes in that paper that her appointment, as successor to a Mr Louis Susman, would be "ludicrous". Her 25 years at Vogue, now as editor-in-chief, during which that magazine's reach, along with her own, has become close to alarming, only diminishes her in the eyes of such critics, although not on the potentially persuasive basis that it has been used to promote capes. "Anna Wintour may be an enticing pick for a celebrity-fixated White House," Gardiner allows, "but she is eminently unsuitable for America's most diplomatic posting."

And perhaps Mr Gardiner is right: anyone who enjoyed the WikiLeaks cables, in which Susman reported back to Washington in missives replete with random newspaper gossip, may wonder if a woman will ever be up to the job. Particularly if, like Wintour, she is more used to being gossiped about. In Robert Tuttle and Susman's cables, we find the ambassadors passing on titbits such as Mervyn King's opinion of Cameron and Osborne as "lightweights" and, where such first-hand accounts are not available, the men are not ashamed to recycle unsourced paper and broadcast reports.

A long cable was devoted, for example, to stories about Shriti Vadera, who was nicknamed, Mr Tuttle had heard, "Shrieky" and "Darth Vader". The ambassador continued: "One private secretary told us Vadera would regularly scream from her desk, 'Get me a cup of coffee' with a string of expletives attached, something almost unheard of in the polite British civil service and prompting three scheduling assistants to leave in three months." He did concede: "It is worth noting that Vadera can also be charismatic and charming, especially with external visitors."

It is presumably, then, to Wintour's disadvantage that it is so hard to picture this astonishingly grand person parcelling up Tuttle-style snippets, not least because, if we believe newspaper reports and the whiny roman à clef The Devil Wears Prada, her own approach to common versus eminent people shares so much in common with that ascribed to Ms Vadera. The primary issue, in TDWP, is its narrator's resentment, as a lowly assistant, at having to pick up coats and being misused as a fetcher of endless snacks and coffees, "Starbucks only, tall latte, two raw sugars", for her impossibly scary boss. "It was impossible to imagine anyone not hating her," the fictional factotum concludes.

In the absence of vengeful novels about their office behaviour, we cannot be certain that Anna Wintour's abrasive treatment of underlings, which she prefers to pass off as "decisiveness" in kittenish television interviews, would be such as to make her significantly more unsuccessful in any future diplomatic work than her male predecessors and competitors. As for "ludicrous" inexperience: the careers of her rivals for London, reportedly the two fellow bundlers, an investment banker called Marc Lasry and former businessman Matthew Barzun, both confirm that a congratulatory ambassadorship is a job for which conventional diplomatic training is neither expected nor necessary.

Asked to define his duties in 2009, when Obama made him US ambassador to Sweden, Matthew Barzun said they were "understanding the Obama administration's policies and helping those be understood by the government and people of Sweden", a characterisation that presumably applies to the UK posting. The job, then, is simplicity itself, or should be for a person, such as Wintour, who is accustomed to understanding the thinking of designers such as Karl Lagerfeld, Christian Louboutin or John Galliano, to name three favourites, then helping their often idiotic, occasionally odious personal philosophies be understood by the readers of Vogue.

Many women, having heard Karl Lagerfeld discoursing on fat people or on Pippa Middleton's face ("she should only show her back") might have struggled, had he not enjoyed Vogue's unwavering support, to comprehend why women should buy clothes from a man who so obviously detests them.

It will not have escaped Mr Obama's attention, given his wife's admired preoccupation with fashion, that there could be additional prestige in a diplomat who, unlike Lasry or Barzun, is versed in the international language of Loubs. Ever the moderniser, Tony Blair has led the way here, by combining his Middle Eastern diplomacy with door-to-door sales of Vuitton, Dior and other LVMH brands. For the UK, business ambassadors such as Anya Hindmarch, Tamara Mellon and London fashion week special envoy Samantha Cameron are proving that no country is too poor or remote to resist the advance of upscale accessories.

None of these style ambassadors has diplomatic contacts to compare with Anna Wintour's. Her famed profiles of Queen Rania of Jordan and Asma al-Assad, depicted in 2011 as "A Rose in the Desert", have both shown how fashion, unlike human rights, can help nation to speak unto nation. Sadly, the Assad piece has had to be removed from the website, it since having become clear to Ms Wintour that Syria's "priorities and values were completely at odds with those of Vogue".

Although there can be no question of Ms Wintour's promise, when it comes to dealing with tyrants or promulgating the approved Obama line on everything from Israel to extradition and climate change, her strong feelings on issues such as vintage clothing (don't), modest parentage (don't), a bad address (don't admit) and blow-dried hair (essential), continue to preoccupy some critics. But an ambassador this terrifying would surely, far from being ludicrous, be so advantageous to US influence, that she would be wasted anywhere outside China, with the possible exception of Afghanistan.

Sir Christopher Meyer, the former British ambassador to Washington (who successfully had a tantrum when Tony Blair proposed to exclude him from a meeting), has summarised the most important qualities required in a diplomat as "a quick mind, a hard head, a strong stomach, a warm smile and a cold eye". He might have been describing Anna Wintour. Assuming that "stomach" was a figure of speech.