"Secretary of State Hillary Clinton grew out her hair."

"It was a fine rebuke to the accepted adage that a woman of a certain age must cut her hair - a symbolic gesture that she is leaving sex appeal and youthful flirtatiousness behind. Clinton's flattering shoulder-length style was a reminder to women who have unhappily submitted to the scissors that they should not allow cultural assumptions to dictate their own perceptions about themselves."

Writes Robin Givhan, collecting the "Best of 2010" items (from her fashion beat). Now, why did Hillary grow her hair out"? ("Grow your hair out" is a funny expression. It's not as if you can grow your hair in. I mean, ingrown hairs aside.) Did she grow her hair to express her perception about herself or to remind other women that they need not adopt the culture's assumptions about themselves? Was she trying to say — via hair — I think I'm sexy or you older women ought to feel that you're sexy and say it with hair? I think she was copying Sarah Palin.

But Sarah is quite a bit younger than Hillary, and the same thing looks different with an older face (and the texture of an older person's hair is different). If you really want to say that long hair on a woman over the age of 60 says sexy, then show us some examples of women that old who look sexier because of their long hair. Or is the point only how you subjectively feel. You don't actually look sexier with that long hair, but we know that it seems that way to you — though maybe signaling that you believe you're sexy is enough to make you look sexier.

But come on! Hillary isn't trying to say I'm sexy. She's trying to say I'm trustworthy and highly competent. Perhaps she's succeeded — look.

Hillary says: "I think I will serve as secretary of state as my last public position."

Oh? You "think." You don't know. And that's "think," in the present tense. So it's your current vision of your future? Is there anything that could possibly cause you to think differently, in the future, about how you see your future?

"WikiLeaks Fallout: Should Hillary Clinton Resign?"

Asks David Corn.

Clinton... signed orders instructing U.S. foreign service officers to spy on the diplomats of other nations....

Diplomats are not spies (though spies do pose as diplomats)....

The administration's strategy -- as is to be expected -- is to focus on the easy-to-demonize messenger, not the hard-to-explain message. But Diplomatgate ought to be a top priority for the oversight committees of Congress....

... [O]ne can expect Clinton to dig in her heels, as the administration decries the leaker and ignores the leaks.

It depends on what the meaning of "am" is — Hillary Clinton said: "I am not in any way interested in or pursuing anything in elected office."

"I love what I'm doing," she said... in the fascinating speech form we call the present tense.

Geoffrey Dunn Slams Sarah Palin in Racially Charged Article at Huffington Post.

Did that catch your eye? Maybe not, since the name Geoffrey Dunn probably doesn't mean much to you,* but the title of his article caught mine: "Sarah Palin Slams Michelle Obama in Racially Charged Passage From New Book." Oh? Did Sarah Palin — and her editors — lose their minds and wield anti-black epithets and stereotypes against the First Lady? No, of course not. Here's what Dunn wrote:

In passages leaked from her forthcoming book America by Heart, Sarah Palin... has taken another cheap shot at First Lady Michelle Obama.

That link goes to another HuffPo post by Dunn claiming it was a "cheap shot" for Palin to refer to "people" saying "they've never been proud of America." Back to the new Dunn item:

In a passage on perceptions of racial inequality in the United States, Palin slams President Barack Obama, who, she asserts, "seems to believe" that "America -- at least America as it currently exists -- is a fundamentally unjust and unequal country."

And then she goes after Michelle Obama:

Certainly his wife expressed this view when she said during the 2008 campaign that she had never felt proud of her country until her husband started winning elections. In retrospect, I guess this shouldn't surprise us, since both of them spent almost two decades in the pews of the Reverend Jeremiah Wright's church listening to his rants against America and white people.

That's it?! Palin had the audacity to remind us about Jeremiah Wright's highly racial tirades? She doesn't even call Wright racist! She refers to the statements he made "against... white people." That's an astoundingly tame reference to the outrageously inflammatory sermons by Wright that surfaced during the 2008 campaign and amazingly didn't sink the Obama candidacy. Watch the video at that link. Wright is yelling at the congregation to reject Hillary Clinton because she's white.

Shamefully lame, Mr. Dunn. Even as an effort to prop up President Obama, it's lame. Do you think it benefits him for us to go back to Jeremiah Wright?

__________
* Don't you know Geoffrey Dunn is an "[a]ward-winning journalist, filmmaker and historian"? That's what it says at the post.  According to his bio:

Dunn has produced and directed more than a dozen award-winning documentary films, including Dollar a Day, 10¢ a Dance: A Historic Portrait of Filipino Farm Workers in America; Miss…or Myth?; and the recently completed Calypso Dreams.

Oh, that Geoffrey Dunn. Not to be confused with Griffin Dunne (who was so cool in "After Hours") or the Geoffrey Dunn who was born in 1903 and played the part of Mr. Lunnis in "The Leather Boys."

Bill Clinton: "I called the president the other day, and I said: 'Relax....'"

"'They haven't said anything about you they didn't say about me. The only reason they're being nice to me right now is because I can't run for anything any more.' "

What did Bill Clinton really mean?
	Relax, the GOP will get some congressional power, but in the end you'll be reelected.
	It's not really all about you. It's all about me.
	Let down your guard, so Hillary and I can oust you in 2012.
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Hillary says: Don't kill yourself.

I can only imagine the impression this makes on a young, gay person who actually is suicidal. I'm old, heterosexual, and an immense fan of staying alive. But I can't see why would it would help to hear this dreary, robotic intonation of conventional advice from a representative of an administration that is fighting, in courts, against the rights of gay people to serve in the military and to marry.

ADDED: "Tomorrow will be better"... that's the message. I note the red dress. Why not:



AND: I think that song really makes you want to stay alive. Look:



There's so much room for personal taste. To each his own. For love partners and for things that stimulate the will to live.

Watch Christine O'Donnell dominate debate, even as Wolf Blitzer tries to control her.

She is not susceptible to pushback by people who imagine themselves her superiors. Extremely well done.

More on the debate here.

ADDED: I think this clip — I haven't watched the rest of the debate — will resonate with women. A lot of us have had experiences with men trying to control us like this, and we instinctively root for the woman in this situation. I was reminded of the famous Hillary Clinton-Rick Lazio debate, in which the male, Lazio, invaded the zone of personal privacy of the female, Clinton.

AND: You can really feel the disrespect for O'Donnell in that clip. Whether it's because she's a woman or not, I think it stirs something instinctive in many women. It's dangerous for men even to seem to give off the vibe that they're really saying: You don't really belong here, little lady. Hillary has often tried to get us to feel that vibe, and it's worked for her quite few times.

"Obama 52%, Clinton 37% for 2012 Democratic Nomination."

Gallup finds — with particular support among women and — in a poll limited to Democrats — "conservatives."

Would you like to see Hillary challenge Obama?
	Yes. I'm against the Democrats and think it will hurt them.
	No. I'm against the Dems and think Obama's a great target and Hillary's a strong candidate.
	Yes. It will test Obama, making him better or replacing him with someone better.
	No. She'll weaken Obama, and the chance that she'll do better isn't worth the risk.
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Today's Drudgedy... Drudge comedy.

Eyes... bucks... Not sure what Drudge is driving at here. Some strange coded message to Ohio? And why show the front and not the back of the dollar bill?

"No mention of Hillary's locks? You're slipping, Althouse!"

Says commenter E.M. Davis, who apparently thinks I do nothing but monitor and comment upon the internet all day long. But thanks for the tip, Eemie, old man. He links to a Daily Mail article titled "Oh Hillary, that hairstyle just doesn't cut it: Mrs Clinton prepares for huge UN meeting with lank locks."

The normally perfect bouffant was gone, to be replaced by what came to be known on Kate Moss at least as the Croydon Facelift.

Well, it's not "normally perfect" and the rest is British gibberish. Britterish.

Mrs Clinton's hair was scraped back and clipped on top of her head, but looked lank and in need of some love and understanding....

It's the clip that is objectionable. You only see it from the side. Maybe it was put in for a frontal photograph, but it looks way too casual (or even trashy) from the side — like showing up in curlers.

With minimal make-up, Mrs Clinton's 63 years came into sharp focus as she moved neatly from urging Pakistan to mend its reputation to an attempt to undermine Mr Ahmadinejad within his own country.

Now, there's a crazy sentence!

But, anyway. About the hair. We all know Hillary is growing her hair longer. Robin Givhan pointed that out a month ago:

Clinton's hair, now creeping toward below-the-shoulders territory, is practically radical for Washington's seasoned female power elite. Good for her....

Cultural pressure to submit to the scissors after a certain age seems rife with an unkind and unspoken subtext that because long locks are a sign of vibrancy and sexiness, it's a social contradiction to see such styles on women who have wrinkles and crow's-feet.

Another popular argument is that long hair drags down the face -- and a face that is showing the effects of gravity should steer clear of anything that might make it look even longer in the tooth.

Throw into the conversation the attitude that long locks are tools of flirtation. They are a handy excuse for a toss of the head; a strand might have to be girlishly flicked out of one's eyes or coyly tucked behind the ear. May a 60-year-old woman flirt?

I think we know what it's about: Sarah Palin. Suddenly, long hair has come to mean power, and there's no need to try to approximate the men anymore. Why ape the men when you can emulate The Divine Sarah?

"What is that? It makes me angry, and I don't even know why."

That's what I said, as I overhead this video (which Meade was playing over there). "It's a Hillary for President ad," he said. It doesn't make me feel angry while looking at the video...



... but that was a weird experience. The music is the most heavy-handed kind of movie music, the stuff you hear in trailers for very big-budget sci-fi. Perhaps Hillary is a big-budget sci-fi project. Ever thought of it/her that way?

In any case, it's not Hillary presenting herself as a candidate, of course. Not overtly anyway. But she is a 2012 candidate, isn't she?

Hillary in 2012?
	Pure fantasy, and it's going nowhere.
	Hillary wants it, she'll jump in if she can, and I hope she does.
	Hillary may want it, but there's no hope for her, and I'm glad.
	Hillary is already running against Obama, and this ad is one sign of that.
	She and Obama made a deal. He'll back out of the 2012 race, then run again in 2016 or 2020 perhaps.
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Althouse in the NYT.

Talking about feminism and the First Lady. (A Bloggingheads clip.)

"If Hillary is going to be one heartbeat away from the Oval Office..."

"... would you want that to be your heartbeat?"

Should Barack Obama do a VP upgrade?

Replace Biden with Hillary? What's that all about?

Pundits jumped on [Former Virginia Gov. Doug] Wilder's comments and expressed near-universal approval. On his syndicated national show, Chris Matthews of MSNBC assembled a panel to discuss the Wilder intervention. Howard Fineman of Newsweek, a longtime Hillary watcher, said Mrs. Clinton would accept a place on the 2012 ticket "in a second." John Heilemann, a reporter New York magazine, said the major obstacle would be to "figure out a way for Biden to slide aside happily" and suggested that Mr. Biden replace Mrs. Clinton as Secretary of State.

Along the way, Mr. Heilemann outlined why President Obama just might want to have a steadier hand at his side for his re-election campaign: "The Republican attack on Obama is going to revolve around 'too liberal,' but also 'too incompetent.' . . . They're going to say, 'Look, you hired this guy. He was too young for this job. He didn't know what he was doing. He didn't have the experience, and look what's happened.'"

Which is why he picked Biden the first time. All this disrespect for Biden! It's making me feel sorry for him. And it looks really desperate. And what's with this fretting about inexperience? When he runs for reelection, having been President for a few years, he'll have better experience than anyone. I don't understand why this Hillary for VP movement has any traction... unless the idea is to prevent her from going for President in 2012.

What Hillary wore.

I don't care about the big wedding. I just want an explanation for that crazy thing enveloping Hillary Clinton.

Is Drudge is trying to say something about hair...

My email informant says "It looks like Biden is about to swat that pesky Lohan."



I'm seeing a hair theme. The Lohan photo is obviously hair-centric. She's young and beautiful... and  deeply troubled and going to jail. The 2 older characters pictured in juxtaposition with her are possibly troubled, but not deeply, and they're not going to jail. They do not find themselves under the thumb of government power. They are the thumb. (Lindsay! Look out for that thumb!) But they are hair-challenged. Surely, they'd trade it all for fabulous hair. Biden has his long, sad history of hair transplants. And Hillary's hair has been a big topic as long as we've known her. And it looks particularly awful in that picture. That photograph seems to say: This is why older women are required to cut their hair short. She's raising a glass of white wine... as if she doesn't even care anymore. She's laughing. Biden is yelling. Lohan is swooning. Now, I'm seeing much more than a message about hair. It's about how the oldsters are crushing the young in America today.

"If the president fires McChrystal, we need a new ambassador and we need an entire new team over there."

"But most importantly, we need the president to say what Secretary Clinton and Secretary Gates have both said but what the president refuses to say: Our withdrawal in the middle of 2011 will be conditions based. It's got to be conditions based and he's got to say it.... He won't say this because he's captive of his far-left base."

McCain.

Meanwhile: "Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal left the White House after meeting with President Obama for about 20 minutes, apparently departing before another meeting on the Afghanistan war scheduled for later Wednesday morning, but there was no immediate word on whether he would keep his job as the top American commander in Afghanistan."

AND: "[W]hy were the general and his team so candid?... They were in Paris...."

AND: In the Wall Street Journal, there's "Why McChrystal Has to Go" by Eliot A. Cohen. But the editors say:

Above all, the President should think beyond short-term political appearances to the difficult hand his own policy restraints have presented to General McChrystal....

This is no justification for military disrespect, but it ought to make Mr. Obama think twice about advice that he sack General McChrystal merely so he doesn't look weak as Commander in Chief. He'll look a lot weaker in a year if his Afghan policy looks like a failure. With a war in the balance, Mr. Obama should not dismiss his most talented commander without knowing who, and what, comes next.

The official portrait of Jerry Brown (from his old governor days).

Interesting, no? I ran across that at Wikipedia as I was looking up some things this morning. I wasn't checking up on his new campaign for governor. I was trying to remember what had happened in the 1992 Democratic primaries. We'd been talking about Bill and Hillary Clinton. (Would we be better off now if Hillary were President?) And I remembered that back in 1992, early on in the primary season when there were a lot of candidates, my shorthand reason for rejecting Bill Clinton was: He's a Republican. Then I was trying to remember who I voted for in the Wisconsin primary, which I knew was late, after many of those candidates had dropped out. Who was the last man standing in the 1992 Democratic primaries challenging Bill Clinton? It was Jerry Brown. Did you remember that?

As the press now focused on the primaries in New York and Wisconsin, which were both to be held on the same day, Brown, who had taken the lead in polls in both states, made a serious gaffe: he announced to an audience of various leaders of New York City's Jewish community that, if nominated, he would consider the Reverend Jesse Jackson as a vice-presidential candidate. Jackson, who had made a pair of anti-Semitic comments about Jews in general and New York City's Jews in particular while running for president in 1984, was still a widely hated figure in that community and Brown's polling numbers suffered. On April 7, he lost narrowly to Bill Clinton in Wisconsin (37–34), and dramatically in New York (41–26).

Here's a New York Times report, from just before the primary:

Mr. Clinton yesterday appeared to be straddling the divisions between the two groups [blacks and Jews], at once putting an advertisement on black radio stations touting his civil rights record and accusing Mr. Brown of pandering to blacks by saying he would choose the Rev. Jesse Jackson as his running mate.

"I think that we should not play politics with the Vice Presidency, even though it can be a vote-getter," Mr. Clinton said....

At a meeting with a Jewish group on Thursday, Mr. Brown was repeatedly asked how he could expect to win the Jewish vote after embracing Mr. Jackson, who referred to New York City as "Hymietown" in the 1984 Presidential campaign.

For his part, Mr. Brown has tried to appeal to appeal to black and Jewish voters alike with a television advertisement that criticizes Mr. Clinton for playing golf at an all-white country club. Yesterday, Mr. Clinton attacked Mr. Brown for the commercial, which he said distorted his record on civil rights.

"Let me tell you something," Mr. Clinton said. "A few years ago Jerry Brown said the real solution to racial problems was for the white boys to teach black boys how to read and for black boys to teach white boys how to fight. Now, I could have run an ad on that and made him look like a bigot."

Ha ha. I could have run an ad on that and made him look like a bigot. He just said it and got it quoted as if he were refraining from using it. Hilarious. I cannot remember if, in the end, I voted for Clinton or Brown. Probably Brown. What an amazing career that man has had. Astounding that after all these years, he's worked his way back to the California governorship.

And, for an unusual guy, an unusual official portrait, by Don Barchardy.

"And when in doubt, go with the particularly American feelings about gender that would rather see Martha Stewart go down than Lee Iacocca..."

"... that would choose almost anybody, for any public office, over Hillary Rodham Clinton. Sarah Palin's entire narrative is based on the audacity, the sheer gall. Accusations of female arrogance have been big over the last year, taking up about half of the political discourse and even more of the conversation about entertainment...."