Are Democrats inherently better groomed than Republicans or is Washington Post scribe Robin Givhan allowing politics to cloud her fashion judgment?
An “increasingly influential source of style buzz” in the nation’s capital, Givhan, according to the Media Research Center, has an interesting penchant: with the exception of Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice, whose dominatrix boots won raves in February, Ms. Givhan seems never to have met a Republican who wasn’t in dire need of an extreme makeover.
In 2000, Givhan famously derided then-Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris as somebody who “can’t even use restraint when she’s wielding a mascara wand.” More recently, Ms. Givhan mocked Vice President Cheney for wearing a parka (“snow blower” attire) to an Auschwitz ceremony.
The latest target is Ambassador to the U.N.-designated John Bolton: “His attire was not merely bland but careless. His hair was so poorly cut, it bordered on rude,” Givhan recently wrote. Bolton’s hair looked as if he had “shaken his hair dry in the manner of an Afghan hound.” Meanwhile, the Bolton mustache looked “like it should be attached to geek glasses and a rubber nose.”
Ms. Givhan came perilously close to saying that Bolton should not be confirmed because of his appearance: “His attire was not merely bland but careless,” she wrote. “His hair was so poorly cut, it bordered on rude. Bolton might well argue that appearance has nothing to do with capabilities. But it certainly can be a measure of one’s respect for the job.”
Maybe that’s what’s really bothering Senator Voinovich?
“[G]o back to a July 9, 2004 Post article on candidate hair,” MRC suggests, “and you start wondering how much her critiques are tilted by her politics.
MRC has extracted the relevant strands from that story:
“‘ George W. Bush ‘has enough hair to fully cover his head, but it is a dull gray thatch that is unremarkable and never seems to glisten even when he is standing in direct sunlight.’
“‘ Dick Cheney ‘has thinning white hair, and the few strands that are there are so lacking in body and bounce that in the presidential hair wars, they don’t even register as wisps.’
“‘ John Kerry’s ‘hair may have turned silver, but he has arrived at age 60 seemingly without having lost a strand. What man wouldn’t gloat, just a little?’
“‘ John Edwards makes Givhan’s heart pitter-patter, writing in one ardent passage that his ‘hair has regularly been referred to as a mop, but that suggests that it is messy or unkempt. Nothing could be further from the truth. He has a precise haircut with artfully clipped layers. His hair is a beautiful shade of chocolate brown with honey-colored highlights. It is not particularly long, but it is smooth and shiny. It is boyish hair not because of the style but because it looks so healthy and buoyant and practically cries out to be tousled the same way a well-groomed golden retriever demands to be nuzzled.'”