REMIND US AGAIN WHY NO ONE RESPECTS THE PRESS?:

Bolton's Hair: No Brush With Greatness (Robin Givhan, April 15, 2005, Washington Post)

John Bolton, President Bush's nominee for ambassador to the United Nations, desperately needs a haircut. It does not have to be a $600 Sally Hershberger cut. Bolton simply needs the basics. Tidy the curling, unruly locks at the nape of his neck, tame the volume at the crown, reel in the wings flapping above his ears, and broker a compromise between his sand-colored mop and his snow-colored mustache.

He needs to do this, not because he should be minding the recommendations of men's fashion magazines or grooming experts but because when he settled in before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee this week to answer questions about his record, his philosophy and his intentions at the U.N., he looked as though he did not even have enough respect for the proceedings to bother combing his hair -- or, for that matter, straightening his tie, or wearing a shirt that did not put his neck in a chokehold. Bolton was one wrinkled suit away from being an insolent mess.

These are not flaws or imperfections of nature. This is not a cruel attempt to hold an everyday man to the standards of an airbrushed model or a nipped and tucked actor. This is a matter of personal style.

Much the same was said of Robert Bork, who deserved to be equally contemptuous of the Democrats grilling him.

Posted by Orrin Judd at April 15, 2005 10:21 AM