April 30, 2007 9:26 AM

Slowpoke: Edwards' Hair, By the Numbers - Featured Cartoon

He got a haircut! He got an expensive haircut! He's supposed to be a populist! Such were the screams around the faux-news story (or "Fox News" story?) about John Edwards and his expensive haircut.

Um, yawn. If we want to be petty and nitpicky, how much does every candidate's dry-cleaning cost? How many minutes over on their cellular plans do they go? How expensive is their debate-night tv make-up?

We have decided that our Presidents need to "look" the part, for better or worse. So, we can't really judge them for paying for that look. Because on the other end we make fun of Wolfowitz for having holes in his socks, Gore when he had a beard and Bush when he had that weird blemish last year.

That's the brittle, bitter answer to this Edwards non-story, but Jen Sorensen's cartoon takes the high-road offering a response that actually focuses us back on costs over which we should be obsessing: the costs incurred by a President who is making our country pay for much more than a haircut.

As the cartoon points out, Edwards' hair wouldn't have let the AG fire U.S. Attorneys. But Edwards himself would probably agree with us that it's time to fire Alberto Gonzales.