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Jamie Malanowski

Why Barack Should Grow a Beard

But there just might be a good reason for Obama to grow a beard: foreign policy. Consider that in the almost 100 years from Wilson to Bush that America has had clean-shaven presidents, the following individuals have been prominent among its enemies: Pancho Villa, Kaiser Wilhelm, Adolf Hitler, Emperor Hirohito, Hideki Tojo, Josef Stalin, Fidel Castro, Ho Chi Minh, Gamal Abdel-Nasser, Hafez al-Assad, Daniel Ortega, the Ayatollah Khomeini, Saddam Hussein, and Osama bin Laden, and right now we’re not exactly sweet on Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

A bearded Obama would show the world that everyone will start with a clean slate, if not a clean lip.

Anybody see a pattern here? Surely it can’t be so simple that America just hates guys who don’t shave. And yet…look how George W. Bush was never quite as friendly with Vicente Fox as we first thought he would be. Look how quickly Ike tossed over Anthony Eden and de Gaulle at Suez. Think he would have done that to Churchill?

Who knows? But the evidence points to a trend—and an opportunity. A bearded Obama would show the world that America bears no one ill will. Everyone starts with a clean slate, if not a clean lip.

At his press conference to announce Bill Richardson as his commerce secretary, Obama reacted to Richardson’s new clean-shavenness: “For some reason, maybe because it was scratchy when he kissed his wife, he was forced to get rid of it—but we're deeply disappointed with the loss of the beard."

Are there any 11-year-old girls out there who would like to send the president-elect an email?

Jamie Malanowski has been an editor at Spy, Time, and Playboy, and is the author of the satirical novel The Coup.

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December 4, 2008 | 6:01am
Comments ()
JohnnyV

Obama avec beard would only reinforce the ridiculous conspiracy-like notions permeating among morons that the man is a Muslim.

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12:41 pm, Dec 4, 2008
markbean

Check out a better picture here http://pflix.com/post/58680681/gerbert-pichacks-blog-blog-archive-mustache of him with a 'biker' stache.

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12:50 pm, Dec 4, 2008
tahophil

If he does grow a beard he can join Beard Team USA and represent our country at the World Beard and Moustache Championships in Alaska in May. www.worldbeardchampionships.com.

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1:50 pm, Dec 4, 2008
bygeorge

You forgot one:
http://www.startrek.com/startrek/view/series/TOS/episode/68738.html

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3:42 pm, Dec 4, 2008
zephid

I think the beard should come back into vogue. It's got a bad rep nowadays. Just because someone else takes ten minutes out of their day to shave shouldn't diminish the others who take ten minutes to trim and groom.

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4:04 pm, Dec 4, 2008
FoolsLogos

While a hearty beard might credit Obama with some gravitas, I think straying away from the Lincoln comparisons would be in his best personal interest. If the juxtaposition doesn't cease soon, we'll be hearing comparisons between Obama and Lincoln's (oft-disregarded) homosexuality. Furthermore, let's hope we will never be able to draw parallels to the ends of their careers.

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4:18 pm, Dec 4, 2008
Gurkman

The Van Gogh photoshop should have one of BO's ears gone.

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5:12 pm, Dec 4, 2008
jdedelman

When o' when will you people realize that Barack Obama is NOT Abraham Lincoln. Good grief. Everyone knows he's really FDR.

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5:15 pm, Dec 4, 2008
spinozareader

To all those potential e-mailing eleven-year-old girls out there:
STEP AWAY FROM THE COMPUTER (or toss your texting device out where I can see it). Do not, I repeat-- DO NOT, ask the "O" to grow a moustache, soul-patch, full beard, or to otherwise adulterate that face of his. Why make a sow's ear out of a silk purse?! And just look at the picture that accompanies this essay. Doesn't it make poor Barack look like one of his parents might have been a Geico caveman?! During the campaign it was suggested that Barack wasn't "black enough." Does he have to suffer the additional insult of not being "evolved enough" when he sports this beard? Hasn't he been through enough.
Instead, I suggest that when he perhaps one day sits across the table from someone like Ahmadinejad, he could just put on one of those Groucho Marx glasses/nose/moustache thingies. Disturbing?...Scary?...absolutely. But more important...removable.
And--don't forget that Groucho was Jewish. Which could double the menace value if you're trying to negotiate with an Islamic fundamentalist. By the end of that meeting, those bad guys might even want to be clean-shaven. (Anyway,I suspect that a lot of these bad guys with beards are just vainly trying to hide a weak chin.)

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5:22 pm, Dec 4, 2008
vectorbabe

Not only should Barack Obama NOT grow a beard, but the Daily Beast should stop running nonsense like this.

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8:55 pm, Dec 4, 2008
FoolsLogos

I doubt any eleven-year-old girls read the daily beast.

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12:44 am, Dec 5, 2008
MKlinker

Call it silly if you want, but I agree with everything this man said. I'd be interested to see Obama in a beard too.

And why does everything have to be so serious? Why is something like this "nonsense"? Go to an actual news site if you want serious...

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1:05 am, Dec 5, 2008
ChanRobt

I know presidents love the idea of being the next Lincoln. Or maybe the next FDR.

But, in order for them to get to be that, the times have to be extremely dangerous and miserable. A lot of us regular citizens have to die or be financially ruined in order to give these presidential egomaniacs their chance at "greatness".

Give me a Harding or if you want somebody outstanding, an Eisenhower. Ike was a no drama president in very dramatic times. No drama is what I want from a president.

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1:09 am, Dec 5, 2008
timothyreed

Let me get this straight- to be like Lincoln all this goof has to do is grow a beard? So do his ears make him like Dumbo the elephant? Or all you have to be is an eloquent speaker- even when you have nothing to say? I say let's go with the Dumbo label and not try for the Lincoln look. To compare this cartoon character to Lincoln is an insult to Lincoln.

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3:43 am, Dec 5, 2008
venezia

Is it silly season? Sheeesh!

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7:59 am, Dec 5, 2008
lilmama51

A beard does not gravitas impart. The guy has a few other thing on his plate.

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9:56 am, Dec 5, 2008
zazzer

A BEARD? Now that's just crazy. What he SHOULD do is grow that muttonchops-turning-into-mustache thing. That's presidential.

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10:10 am, Dec 5, 2008
fromparis

Not one of your best articles...

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10:15 am, Dec 5, 2008
dm10003

hoop earrings.

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1:01 am, Dec 6, 2008
Alexius

He should sport a bushy beard, dressed like Santa Claus for this coming festive season and revolutionalise white christmas into a black one.

............
http://thesuffocate.blogspot.com/

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1:35 am, Dec 6, 2008
jpaultel

I came here thinking that Tina Brown knew what she was doing. What is this beard and whiskers thing about? Remove the 2 nuggets (I tried hard to find one more but couldn't) about Grace Bedell and the Ho Chi Mihn's crowd and this is an empty two-page waste of space.

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3:15 pm, Dec 6, 2008
overdue

Amen, vectorbabe!
I come to this site for analysis and opinions, not DMZ stuff.
Plus it's not even that funny, the photoshop pics are not that great; if I want humor, I go to The Onion. TDB should not even try; they fail each and every time.

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5:47 pm, Dec 6, 2008
RemoteOutpost

Tell you what: after the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are resolved; after the economy is straightened out; after health care for all becomes a reality; after the country's infrastructures are mended; after all the many things that critically need to be addressed then I could care less if Obama wants to go full bore and become the fourth member of ZZ Top.

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11:58 pm, Dec 7, 2008
chinaguy

I love the Santa Obama....

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5:17 am, Dec 8, 2008
marklemagne

Seriously bad Photoshopping.

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9:21 am, Dec 8, 2008
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Why Barack Should Grow a Beard

by Jamie Malanowski

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