How is the writer of this Vanity Fair article not fired? And by "fired," I mean actually covered in gasoline and set aflame before he has a chance to interview anyone ever again who does not habitually drink beer from a funnel.

The assignment was, apparently, a simple Q&A with writer/director Nancy Meyers about her new film, It's Complicated, starring Meryl Streep and notable for being one of three films in cinematic history to acknowledge that women over the age of 28 might, on rare occasions, consider having sex.

A quote from our industrious scribe: (I swear to God I am not making this up.)

"I'm under thirty, I'm not married, and I'm not a woman...the only bit I could personally relate to was the sequence when the three get too stoned to function."

Funny, I didn't realize Vanity Fair was now being written by frat boys.

He then goes on to prove his incompetence beginning with the very first question, which opens:

"I always thought - or rather hoped - that people got smarter about relationships as they got older..."

Translation: "I am easily distracted by shiny bits of tinsel, so it's possible I missed the subtler lessons here."

Ms. Meyers's answer: "...I don't look at it that way...The whole point of that relationship [between Steve Martin's and Streep's characters] is that...he's not another guy who's going to have enormous issues and problems."

Things do not radically improve. Eventually Ms. Meyers backhands him.

Question: "Do you see it as sort of a wish-fulfillment fantasy, like an anti-Big? You know, middle-aged divorces acting hot and heavy again?"

Answer: "You think only in movies divorced people get back together?"

That's when the writer realizes things might have gone off the rails and pees himself a little.

To her credit, Ms. Meyers doesn't tear off his head and feed it to her pack of assistants. She would've been well within her rights. Or perhaps it's the assigning editor who deserves disembowelment.

Would a radically unqualified reporter - possibly, from the sounds of it, an intern - have been sent to interview a big-time male director, have been allowed to ask insulting, uninformed questions and then have the resulting slop published by a major magazine?

I rather doubt it.