I said this on Twitter earlier today:
Just one thing: Before @BorisJohnson becomes P.M., will he do something about the Trumpesque hair? That would make him easier to tolerate…
— Brad Warthen (@BradWarthen) June 27, 2016
But that’s not exactly right.
Trump’s hair and Johnson’s do have things in common — they’re both light-colored, they’re both flamboyant and they’re both ridiculous.
Boris Johnson’s actual Twitter profile photo.
But there’s a huge, defining difference, which actually makes them opposites: Trump’s hair is ridiculous because it’s so obvious that he goes to far too much trouble to make it look like that. Johnson’s is distracting because he goes out of his way to look like he does nothing with it, that he has never in his life seen a comb or had anything to do with one.
In any case, both are distracting, and do not inspire the kind of confidence one would like to have in the head of a major country.
Boris’ hair in the actual, formal portrait photo at right, reminds me of my grandson — he resists anyone combing his hair, firmly declaring that he prefers that it remain “bumpy.” In a 4-year-old, this is endearing, and I have been known to compliment him on the bumpiness of his hair. In fact, I regularly reach out and muss it up for him.
But in a grown man who wishes to be taken seriously by other grown men, it is ridiculous.
Now is the time on bradwarthen.com when we all harrumph together over men among us with ridiculous hair.
Harrumph, harrumph, harrumph, harrumph, harrumph…
What sort of hair should a serious world leader have? The sort that we don’t notice. The sort that, if someone asks us to describe it when we’re not looking at it, we can’t. We shouldn’t even be able to swear whether he has hair or not, unless it’s right in front of us. It should be that understated and unobtrusive.
I’ll pause now for a moment while you all say, Hear, hear!
Hear, hear! Hear, hear! Hear, hear! Hear, hear!…
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His suit jacket also looks ill-fitting.
To have a Prime Minister who is all ahoo is quite unfortunate.
It’s not quite the thing…
“Quite right!” and “Bloody well right!” are both acceptable as substitutes for “Hear, hear!”
Although I’ll ask the gentlemen of the blog to refrain from uttering the latter formulation when ladies are present…
Like Trey Gowdy on a bad hair day.
OK, confession time. I feel like a proper twit.
Several months ago, in an Open Thread, I referred to Boris Johnson as “Red Boris.” I did so even after Googling the phrase and having trouble running it down, which puzzled me at the time.
Here’s why: I was confusing him with his predecessor as mayor of London, “Red Ken” Livingstone. I realized that when I ran across a reference to the Labour pol in a recent George Will column while checking something for a previous post.
I did this even though it struck me as odd that a Tory politician would be called “Red.”
Even more embarrassingly, I suppose I made the association because Johnson’s name is “Boris.” I figured that was the source of the sobriquet.
So I’m feeling pretty stupid now…
While we’re making fun of guys with (intentionally) bad hair, have you seen the doofus congressman who has called for an “Amexit” from the U.N.?
This is an actual guy who actually got elected by actual American voters:
I think we can do better than “Amexit”. How about:
1. Americ-aurevior
2. United State-seeyalater
3. USCape (escape)
By the way, Boris has been missing on Twitter since the Brexit result came in. Here was his last Tweet:
A refugee from the John Birch Society?
Gary Busey could be his evil twin.