Combover Congress

How can we trust our leaders to manage impeachment when they can't even manage their hair?

By Cynthia Heimel

Feb 3, 1999 | Those of us who watch the impeachment trials have been shocked -- shocked! -- by the appearance of our congressional leaders. Have they no pride? No decorum? Have they no mirrors?

I do not refer to the jaunty Gilbert-and-Sullivan-inspired stripes on Chief Justice William Rehnquist's costume. These stripes are poignant in their innocence. They're perfect for this sober, solemn, somber game of impeachment. They make a fine foil for those superannuated boy faces screwed up to look all grave while they play Let's Be Saddened, Let's Intone Shakespeare Quotes and Let's Sign Our Names to Some Paper With a Special Pen!

But what, in all that's true and sacred, could our congresspeople be thinking with those inane hairdos? How are the American people supposed to endure these dishonest congressional coiffures? How can we trust these men and a handful of women to manage our country when even their hair is completely beyond them?

Take, if you dare, Trent Lott. What the hell is happening on the top of our majority leader's head? Is it a wig? It's gotta be a wig the way it perches there in its rigid glory, right? If so, it's a cheap one, and we can congratulate our leader on his thrift. But what if it isn't? What if it's real and therefore an actual hairdo choice? Can we trust a man who chooses to look as if he's wearing a greased cat?

We avert our eyes, but unfortunately they accidentally light on Tom Daschle. Daschle has always been a cute man, an impish man, a man with naturally wavy hair. Yet I would lay heavy odds that Tom now has a big ol' dye job.

It's the orange tint that gives it away. Orange on a middle-aged man means he's been playing unsupervised amongst the Clairol. Reagan and Bush both affected a Raggedy Ann orange, perhaps hoping to look lovable when, in fact, their hair seemed to be spontaneously combusting.

"Ronnie doesn't die his hair, he's just prematurely orange," Gerald Ford once said.

Next Page: "I'd like to slap that guy around until his hair cracks ..."

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