The media seems obsessed today with the subject of Barack Obama’s hair.
First, The New York Times notes that Obama’s mane seems to be showing signs of the strain of office already:
WASHINGTON — Well, that didn’t take long. Just 44 days into the job, and President Obama is going gray.
It happens to all of them, of course — Bill Clinton still had about half a head of brown hair when he took office but was a silver fox two years later, and George W. Bush went from salt and pepper to just salt in what seemed like a blink of an eye.
But so soon? “I started noticing it toward the end of the campaign and leading up to inauguration,” says Deborah Willis, who, as co-author of “Obama: The Historic Campaign in Photographs,” pored through 5,000 photographs of the first head over the last year.
Mr. Obama’s graying is still of the flecked variety, and appears to wax and wane depending on when he gets his hair cut, which he does about every two weeks. His barber, who goes by only one name, Zariff, takes umbrage with bloggers who alternately claim Mr. Obama, 47, is dyeing his hair gray (to appear more distinguished) or dyeing it black (to appear younger). “I can tell you that his hair is 100 percent natural,” Zariff said. “He wouldn’t get it colored.”
And for all of his 16 years giving Mr. Obama his “quo vadis” haircut — black parlance from the 1960s for close-cut locks — Zariff said he is not about to start ribbing Mr. Obama. “We do not tease about the gray at all,” he said.
For a guy who prides himself on projecting a stress-free demeanor, the changes above his temples are speckled evidence that perhaps the psychological and physical strains of the job — never mind the long process of winning it — are in fact taking something of a toll. (Experts say stress can contribute to whitening locks.)
And, The Washington Post carries a nearly identical story today. The only difference between the two, it seems, is that the Post article is in the Style section, while the Times saw fit to put the state of the Presidential mane on it’s front page.
It’s popular to say that the job of President seems to grey it’s holders, and this certainly seems to be true of Bill Clinton and George Bush, both of whom left office far grayer, and far older, than when they entered. And that will likely happen to Obama too, but, as James Joyner notes, it’s not necessarily due his job. I’m seven years younger than Obama and have a far less stressful job than he does, but I can attest to the fact that “flecks” of gray have been showing up, slowly but surely, for at least two years now.
So, welcome to the club Mr. President.
