THE STORY THAT WILL NOT DIE. Today in "Simon Says," The Politico tells us that their chief political columnist, Roger Simon, "reluctantly takes another look at the haircut that will not die." And it's (partly) true! Simon does spend another column on that haircut. But he does so heaving a huge sigh of regret, frustrated that events have forced a substantive, serious reporter such as himself to further engage with such shallow trivialities. "I was willing never to write about the haircuts again," sighs Simon, near the start of his column. But then: Catastrophe. "As I say, I was not going to write about this again," repeats Simon. "But Wednesday morning I opened up my USA Today and saw on the letters page a picture of John Edwards next to a letter from Richard King of Olympia, Wash." Not a letter! From someone in Washington! In USA Today! For God's sake people, this is a story about personal grooming, not landing on Normandy! But so serious a reporter is Simon that he might have bravely ignored even that injection of the haircut into the national conversation. But then: More catastrophe. "Think [the letter] is bad? That is not bad. This is bad: When you go to Google and enter "Edwards haircut," the first item that comes up is a story by Bill Wundram in The Quad-City Times of Davenport, Iowa." So if you google for the haircut, you actually find results related to the story. Is it any wonder Simon could stay his pen no longer? After all, this story had a letter in USA Today and Google results! It lives, and breathes, and laughs, and plays, and stands in Simon's office stamping its foot on the floor and demanding attention. To resist would be inhuman. To deny would be monstrous. Update: Glenn Greenwald is far more comprehensive than I. Don't settle for mockery when you can get full-on evisceration. --Ezra Klein
