Callista's hair

Callista Gingrich's hair has always bothered me, and I'm willing to admit that it may be mainly because Newt bothers me so much and it just spills over to his mistress cum #3 wife -- the She Who Would Be First Lady.

That, too.   But it's also the hair itself -- that platinum helmet so stiffly lacquered into place that the swoop around over her left ear never varies, and there's nary a hair out of place, ever.  Check out photos from a year ago -- the swoop is always, exactly in the same place, morning, noon, and night.   It is truly a rigid helmet.  She could play football and need no further head protection.

Now, thanks to an article by Newsweek's Michelle Cottle, all is explained.   Calissta's hair, in it's obsessive order and consistency, helps to balance Newt's disorderly, unreliable image.

Cottle refers to this as the "crucial role ascribed to first ladies:  providing contrast to her man's image in order to convey a sense of equilibrium."   (Pace, outraged feminists;  I'm with you on this.)

Think Barbara Bush as "everyone's favorite grandma, as homey and frumpy as the president was crisp and formal."   Laura's "soft-spoken librarian" to George W.'s "loud-mouthed, swaggering cowboy."   Even Michelle, with her Harvard law degree and executive experience, plays up her motherly warmth and "keeping-it-real" persona to soften Barack's image as aloof professor.

So now that I know there is a purpose to Callista's hair, maybe I can be a little more tolerant.  It doesn't make me trust Newt one iota more, however.

Ralph