The Fact-esque Factor for 8/18/04

Yesterday, Lloyd Grove in the New York Daily News took up Matt Drudge's mantle of obsession with John Kerry's follicular maintenance:

I hear that when Kerry was in Portland, Ore., last weekend preparing to windsurf on the Columbia River Gorge, he flew his Washington-based hairstylist, Isabelle Goetz, across the country to give him a camera-ready trim.



A knowledgeable source told me that the French-born Goetz - who tends the Massachusetts senator's mane while also caring for Sen. Hillary Clinton's coiffure - caught up with the candidate in Portland on Friday (after flying commercial, I'm told), trimmed his luxuriant salt-and-pepper locks and then returned to Washington the same night.



But because of light breezes on Saturday, Kerry's windsurfing photo op never came off.



It was unclear yesterday how much the haircut cost, or who paid: the husband of Heinz ketchup heiress Teresa Heinz Kerry or the Kerry campaign. Kerry communications director Stephanie Cutter didn't respond to my detailed E-mail and voice-mail messages.



Goetz - who's a popular and busy woman in the Washington salon of celebrity-stylist Cristophe - told The Washington Post three years ago that she typically charged Kerry $75 for a haircut. But that 2001 fee would not have included a last-minute round-trip plane ticket (today around $1,450 for a coach seat on American Airlines) or a whole day of Goetz's valuable time.



Goetz didn't respond to detailed messages left on her home and cell phones. Cristophe - who also operates a high-end salon in Beverly Hills and recently opened another one in Las Vegas - likewise didn't return phone calls.



In May 1993, the Belgian-born Cristophe was caught in a messy political tangle when The Washington Post reported that he had boarded Air Force One, which was parked at Los Angeles International Airport, to give President Bill Clinton a trim.



Back then, there were reports that the notorious haircut-on-the-tarmac caused delays in commercial air traffic.



But yesterday there was no evidence that Kerry's haircut made anyone late.

"It's been widely reported, Jon....that makes it 'fact-esque'" -- Stephen Colbert, The Daily Show