Bad Hair Day?

"I know several female on-air television personalities who spend considerably less than this on haircuts, though Japanese straightening treatments can take them into the over $500 range. I can't imagine Edwards spent $400 for just a haircut. That seems excessive, even for a top salon, given how short his hair is, how basic his style is, and given that men's cuts generally run less than women's."

Japanese straightening treatments?

Matthew Yglesias says it's all Dowd's fault:

"To me what makes this sort of crap doubly aggravating is her refusal to even take responsibility for what she's doing. Dowd doesn't want to wake up and say, 'I'm using my New York Times column to argue that John Edwards would be a bad president because he got some expensive haircuts.' She won't come out and write: 'John Edwards' expensive haircuts indicate to me that he would be a bad president.' If she wrote that, after all, it would be obvious that she was being idiotic. Why, after all, would you think that the price of Edwards' haircuts is an important indicator of what kind of job he'd do as president.

"So, instead, she writes a column which is nominally about how other people will find his haircuts objectionable."

But Ezra Klein blames the candidate:

"What I don't understand is John Edwards. A presidential campaign demands so many sacrifices. It rips you from your family, forces a ceaseless travel schedule, demands constant kowtowing to parochial primary voters, demands endless humiliating fundraising calls, and imposes a thousand indignities and inconveniences, some major, some minor. So why, in all that he is giving up, did he not eschew the big house or the costly cut?

"To be clear, for all I care, Edwards can live in Versailles and give Alan Greenspan gold bricks to cut his hair. But every Democratic presidential candidate since Clinton has been tagged for expensive haircuts. Everyone knows appearances matter, and populist credibility is harmed by accusations of opulent personal habits."

And Cenk Uygur puts the blame on . . . conservatives!

"When is the mainstream media ever going to catch on to the obvious right-wing smears that pop up every election cycle? This week we were treated to the same old political trick the Republicans do to almost every Democratic presidential candidate -- the expensive haircut!

"How many times do you have to see this movie before you get bored by it? Or even catch on to what's happening? Remember Bill Clinton's supposed $200 haircut? That was later completely disproved, but the late night comedians got a hold it and it was way too late. The damage was done already. How many people heard those jokes and heard conservative radio and Fox News Channel talking about it? Millions upon millions. How many heard that it was later shown to be untrue? Maybe eight people, maybe.

"Then it was John Kerry's $75 haircut. Then that got bumped up to a $1,000 haircut. And one conservative blogger estimated that it even cost $15,000. Other than the fact that this is absurd, why do you think we never hear about Republican candidates' haircuts? You don't think we could find one Republican getting a $75 haircut? How about Mitt Romney? It looks like it would cost $75 just for the gel he puts in his hair everyday."