Phil Brennan
Wednesday, Dec. 4, 2002

I was at an editorial meeting some years ago when one of my fellow editors suggested doing a story on the strong political power of Jimmy Carter's perfect teeth. Teeth, it appears, loomed large to him as a political asset to be exploited on behalf of Jimmy Carter, who our publisher, for reasons I can't imagine, favored.

I'm not very big on teeth. My current lack of a full complement of molars and bicuspids, etc., is proving to be both a painful and very expensive experience. I find nothing amusing about teeth, although some years ago I was intrigued by a lawyer friend who worked with a London law firm, Tooth & Tooth. He used to write to them as "Dear Teeth."

It would have been more fun if the Tooths had a partner named Nail. Tooth and Nail sounds better, like hammer and tong – it provides a little diversity, and you know how important that is these PC days.

Anyway, as an item of political interest, the teeth thing faded quickly, and except for Clintonian lip biting, there hasn't been any similar presidential oddity attracting attention since. Until now, that is.

We are now suddenly focusing on hair, huge mounds of it sitting atop the skulls of presidential hopefuls and other members of the political class.

Last Sunday, Sen. John Kerry was Tim Russet's guest on "Meet the Press." Sen. Kennedy's colleague and soul mate mouthed all the inane liberal garbage that passes for political dialogue within the sad confines of today's National Socialist Democrat Worker's party, showing he has learned nothing since the Nov. 5 debacle demonstrated that old folks can no longer be panicked by Democrat warnings that the GOP plans to drive them into the outer darkness where there is weeping and wailing and the gnashing of teeth over the alleged coming destruction of Social Security and more tax cuts for the despicable rich.

Mr. Kerry, who, as Boston's Howie Carr has noted, left his first wife and her $300 million fortune and married his second wife and her $600 million fortune, wept over the horror of Republican tax cuts for his fellow titans who have the nerve to want to get a break just because they pay 37-plus percent of all the income taxes collected.

In Socialist Democrat terms, you're also filthy rich if you are among the top 50 percent – those fat cats with huge incomes of $27,682 and more who are among the taxpayers who ante-up 96.09 percent of all federal income taxes, according to the IRS, using figures from the year 2000.

The very rich – those in Kerry's bracket – with incomes of $313,469 or more, paid a hefty 37.42 percent of all federal income taxes in 2000. Obviously, they're a greedy lot who want a little relief from a tax burden not shared by the bottom 50 percent who pay ... well ... hardly anything – a measly 3.9 percent in that year.

In Kerry's world of make-believe economics, since that bottom 50 percent pays little or nothing, cutting their taxes gives them little or nothing. So we have to go someplace else to provide them with a tax break – such as FICA taxes, which support cash-strapped Medicare and endangered Social Security, which Kerry and his playmates keep warning must be saved.

Cutting the income that keeps them barely afloat by cutting FICA taxes, in their view, is a dandy idea, something like cutting off a foot to cure a case of athlete's foot.

But all that is neither here nor there. What fascinated me was the senator's hair – I couldn't take my eyes off his carefully disciplined crowning glory, not a single lock out of place. It is truly spectacular, a helmet of salt and pepper locks that rises majestically, wave after wave, above his ruined face.

I wondered if anyone else was equally struck by Mr. Kerry's most distinguishing asset. And sure enough, lots of people did.

Matt Drudge, for example, accused Kerry of spending $150 every time he visited Washington's premier barber, one Cristophe, to have his hair Shampooed, trimmed and highlighted. Not so, said Isabelle Goetz, the lady who looks after Kerry's hairdo. She told the Washington Post's Lloyd Grove she only charges $75.

Then comes Mr. Kerry's flack, one David Wade, who told Grove that "John Kerry has never had his hair colored or highlighted although a lot of people tell him he should ... [and] if it looks like his haircut costs $150, he must be getting an extraordinary deal, because it's not even in that ballpark. I wonder if this is a 'not so subtle hint' from some in the hair care industry that Kerry should start covering his grey, but don't expect him to star in a Just for Men commercial soon."

We won't, Dave, we won't. Viagra maybe, like his former colleague Bob Dole, but never hair products.

And Drudge was not alone. Lucianne Goldberg noticed too. It appears that just about everybody was drawn to the top of Kerry's head during his "Meet the Press" stint, somewhat surprisingly, since the helmet style is, and has been, the rage in Washington for a long time. There is hardly a politician on Capitol Hill, for example, who hasn't resorted to the comb-over to cover a receding hairline. Especially those Democrat senators with an itch to occupy the White House.

I cite, for example, North Carolina Senator John Edwards. Although his hirsute helmet is somewhat dwarfed by his Massachusetts rival's, it's still an impressive comb-over – although probably not sufficient to make voters forget that he made his fortune not by marrying it, but by being a very model member of the infamous horde of that bottom-feeding species known as trial lawyers.

Then there's Sen. Trent Lott. He may not be a potential candidate for the presidency, but if a towering helmet of hair is a prime qualification, Lott's right up there with the best of them.

Now, if you detect a note of jealousy here, you're on target. My hairline is receding, there's very little left up front. I have what a young lady once described as my "cute little widow's peak." In recent years, the peak has vastly diminished. And so, in my vanity I attempt to effect a comb-over. But a senatorial style helmet is beyond me.

To crown your pate with anything as impressive as a Kerry, Edwards or Lott helmet requires allowing what's left of one's hair to grow luxuriantly – it must be very thick and long in back so that it can be combed forward before it takes a lateral swerve and becomes an integral part of the intricate comb-over maneuver.

I can't bring myself to let my hair grow long – ever since I sat in the barber's chair at Parris Island and had my head shaved to boot camp standards, I have been obsessed with keeping my hair Marine Corps short, as if some ghostly drill instructor might suddenly appear and punish me severely if I allowed it to grow beyond Corps-approved lengths.

And that defeats any attempts to grow a helmet style comb-over. I guess I'll never qualify to be a presidential candidate, since, if the current crop of candidates is any indication, it now appears that the helmet is an obligatory prerequisite.

Imagine what Kerry or Edwards would look like with a "cute little widow's peak." Or worse, with no peak at all – just a vast wasteland of bare, unadorned skin stretching endlessly to the back of their heads. Picture all those comb-overs in the Senate and House vanishing and being replaced by a sea of Henry Waxman-style bald pates.

On the wall behind my computer is a photo of my great-uncle Phil. He peers out at me from under a comb-over consisting of a few scattered strands of hair covering a lot of bare skin that peeks through, like strands of grass through melting snow. I haven't got anywhere near that state yet, and I hope I never will.

But back to the matter of politics and hair, or rather hairdos. It has become obvious that the political class is convinced of the vote getting abilities engendered by the appearance of a lavishly endowed head of hair. In view of this, one has to ask if the electorate is really so depraved as to base their judgments and their votes on anything as ephemeral as a helmet of hair.

If shorn of their hair, do the Kerrys and Edwardses of Washington fear they'll suffer Samson's fate? In the words of a poem by a guy also named Edwards, do they see themselves as "Ugly, bald men mutated into simpering, befurred, appallingly coiffured fools"?

Have focus groups endorsed the concept that lush helmets equal myriads of votes? Have all those political pros that Al Gore now says he scorns been advising their clients to "comb-over or perish?"

Perhaps. But then there's Rudy Giuliani, everybody's potential future presidential candidate and the former bearer of an Uncle Phil-style of failed comb-over. Rudy finally said the hell with helmets and shaved his head. It works. Lucianne Goldberg says it make him look sexy.

Rudy may be part of the combless wave of the future where the reflection from a shiny bald pate will replace the helmet, and Henry Waxman will become the Democrats' favorite son.

Hair today, skin tomorrow.

So goes the State of the Union.

Phil Brennan is a veteran journalist who writes for NewsMax.com. He is editor & publisher of Wednesday on the Web (http://www.pvbr.com) and was Washington columnist for National Review magazine in the 1960s. He also served as a staff aide for the House Republican Policy Committee and helped handle the Washington public relations operation for the Alaska Statehood Committee which won statehood for Alaska. He is a trustee of the Lincoln Heritage Institute.

He can be reached at phil@newsmax.com

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