Thanksgiving epiphany! Anna Wintour must resign as editor-in-chief of Vogue. After resisting the news that A-Dubs is considering retirement as her contract comes up for renewal, the desperation of Vogue December threw me over the proverbial ledge. Here’s the thing: Anna Wintour’s personality has eclipsed her editorial capabilities. Put another way, she is more potent as a symbol of a certain idea of fashion than a force for fresh ideas. So while she remains an enigmatic source of fascination, the magazine is a tangible source of bewildered derision among media- and fashion-watchers, and that is unacceptable for America’s premier fashion magazine. Let’s take the December issue, and the ridiculously obvious Jennifer Aniston cover.

With the exception of Vogue, the world moved on when Brad Pitt did. And yet, Anna Wintour enables the supposedly private actress with an annual cover and the opportunity to dispense uncredible notions like the idea that she’s been “unbelievably lucky in love” — enquiring minds would like to know with whom — while taking an unprecedented turn toward the tabloidy with the much-discussed cover line, “What Angelina did was very uncool.” Well, sure it was. But nobody cares about that either, because even though Angelina Jolie is as much of a media construct as Jennifer Aniston, Angelina is prettier, owns an Oscar and shares a bed with Brad Pitt.

Emphasizing the pathetic Aniston cover story is the positively moldy feature well. There’s the 15-page Romeo and Juliet photo-yawn that in more avant-garde hands would have been seized as an opportunity for subversive updating; the umpteenth story about Oscar de la Renta’s garden; the umpteenth fashion shoot featuring a jumping model; and a piece about a Francesco Clemente portrait sitting whose concept was swiped verbatim from an old ELLE story about interior decorator/Vera Wang shopping mate Lisa Jackson’s portrait sitting with the same overrated artist. Even Jon Hamm, the most exciting leading man to emerge in a generation, seems hopelessly lost in a directionless shoot opposite the equally exciting new model Catherine McNeil. And the jewelry spread featuring “six of modeling’s brightest stars” is confusing enough to raise an unpleasant thought: Is Vogue attempting a quickie elevation of brown-skinned newcomers Lakshmi Menon and Arlenis Sosa to the level of establishment faves Sasha Pivovarova and Coco Rocha, in order to mitigate ongoing charges of racism?

Whatever the intention, the effect is symbolic of what American Vogue has become — stale and disappointing, without a clue about how to navigate a new world that cannot be about mindless consumerism for rich white folks. Anna Wintour was right for her times — 1988 to 2008 — but the times have changed and she has not. Super sadness! On the bright side, think of the job-creation opportunities.

Now that Alex Kuczynski got a gestational-surrogacy happy ending — a baby, whose creation is affectingly reported for the Sunday Magazine — it seems fair to ask a couple q’s about The Times’s resident rich lady. First — and I warn you, this is a very unpretty thought about the “Beauty Junkies” author — did it ever occur to the self-proclaimed plastic-surgery addict that the constant injecting and sucking might adversely affect her reproductive abilities? (See, I told you it was an ugly thought.) Second, as the inaugural writer of the Critical Shopper column, Kuczynski was refreshingly unabashed about her boom-times spending habits. Since giving up the gig, however, what has happened to Kuczynski’s style? Her black pumps, inset, are like the footwear version of mom jeans. In other words, not acceptable!