Asymmetrical Information

It's especially hard to compare photos when one is taken indoors and the other outside. And judging by the photos, if Bush is dying his hair, he's using something with a lot of green in it. (Perhaps he's trying to appease the environmental movement.)

um...could it be that he STOPPED coloring his hair?

Obviously Bush is morally inferior to Reagan, whose hair didn't go gray for.....what, 75 years?

Well, there are two bathrooms in my apartment, with somewhat different lighting fixtures, and my own hair looks darkish blonde in one bathroom mirror and almost-entirely-grey (closer to the truth, alas) in the other. Lighting makes a hell of a lot of difference, folks. Non-story, IMO.

Bush should sue for defamation!

Oh wait, he's not taking Gerhart Schroder's advice...

And what's the big deal? Clinton went grey in office too...

It's not just the hair. But the Look. The Wrinkles, the bags around the eyes. Its the look of age. But most importantly, its the office. His entire day is readinng threats, dealing with crisis after crisis, and having to work with people who want his job and his power.
As much as I (or any of us) think about what we would do if we were president, I see the contrast of what 2 years of stress and responsibility have down to what was a pristine example of physical upkeep. And I do not envy him.

It's not just the hair. But the Look. The Wrinkles, the bags around the eyes. Its the look of age. But most importantly, its the office. His entire day is readinng threats, dealing with crisis after crisis, and having to work with people who want his job and his power.
As much as I (or any of us) think about what we would do if we were president, I see the contrast of what 2 years of stress and responsibility have down to what was a pristine example of physical upkeep. And I do not envy him.

It was a silly issue in the Reagan administration. Hilary's hairstyles were a silly issue in the Clinton administration. Gore's clothes were a silly issue. Bush's statement of Gore "not knowing who he is" because he dyed his hair was stupid.

The alleged issue of John Kerry's haircut was silly. The issue of Bush was silly.

Well, tehy weren't issues with me, except I think she looks better in short hair. But this one's not just silly -- it's untrue.

I agree, the lighting can make a difference. Sometimes people say I have red hair...others blond.

Not to be too contrarian, but the John Kerry thing wasn't true either. Bill Clinton holding up traffic at LAX for a haircut wasn't true either. So the charge that this one is different because it isn't true...isn't true.

I don't see that it's a big deal whether he dyes his hair or not. It isn't his follicular honesty that matters.

I think it's mostly a matter of how much blue (along with other colors) there is in the lighting. My own hair appears completely white (from the front, at least -- more dark's hangin' out in the back) in sunlight, but indoors under incandescent bulbs it appears more steely-gray, and in some lighting you can even see the original brown overtones.

Add to that the fact that all these pictures have been converted to digital format (if they didn't start out that way -- very likely these days) and are being viewed on computer monitors. Go ask anyone who deals professionally with color reproduction if there's a single hope in hell that you're seeing comparable color reproduction between these photos. (Hint: there isn't. Not one.)

Another tempest in a very small teapot, and the hot air is coming from those who seek any reason to hate Bush 43.

Really, if there was a story here it is not about whether or not Bush dyes his hair. I could care less if he did, nor would I interpret it as a sign of a deficient character (as he did with respect to Gore). However, if he did dye his hair, in light of his comments about Gore, it would be a pretty clear demonstration of hypocrisy.

Having said that, I no longer think it is likely that he did dye his hair. The weight of photographic evidence is against it. So I'm going to drop it for now.

Dying his hair is irrelevant to the handling of issues.

BTW, the reason that his hair looks greenish in some photos is because of the lighting. Flourescent lighting casts a greenish pallor, tungsten (incandescent) has a yellowish pallor.

You do a lot in photographs to compensate for it -- filters, post process tweaking, etc.

You can handle it easily with tungsten ligting, since the wavelength of the light emmissions is constant from light to light. A blue filter (80A, b, or C, fwiw) corrects this yellowing.

Flourescent lights are another story -- it depends upon the gas formulation, the exact frequency of the electronics, etc. etc. etc. Kodak makes a filter catalog that lists about fifty different brands and manufacturers and the filters you need to correct for that particular light. The simplest way to do it is to usea flash, but sometimes you get a greenish aura in hair and on skin.

Just thought you'd like to know :-)

J

Oh, and flashes produce the same full spectrum as sunlight, so they need no color correction.

J

This may just be an application of the lawyer's rules for billing: The right amount of gray is worth an additional $50 on the hourly rate.

In picture 5 he's giving Helen Thomas the finger, but as usual his diction is slightly off.

Kleiman simply misspoke. He obviously meant that Berlusconi dies his hair.

Dying his hair is irrelevant to the handling of issues.

not if he doesn't wash the dye off his hands before he handles the issues. "who wants just for presidents" hair dye all over the economy?

sorry, don't mean, all over the economy, i mean, all over the elimination of the dividend tax.

I would have to agree with the critics: if Bush dyes his hair, it's a slam on his character after his shot at Gore.

However, it doesn't look like he dyes his hair, based on the photographic evidence I've seen. Yeah, his hair changes colors a lot in different lights. So does mine. That happens a lot when you have light colored hair.

maybe it's mood hair.

Only someone with virtually no knowledge of photography could write what Klienman writes. Hasn't he noticed how many darker skinned people can look almost white in some (albeit, usually B&W newspaper) photographs, and not at all white in others?

I don't do portrait photography, but I've studied it enough to know that it would be very possible to use very basic lighting techniques to create a much wider range in hair color than all of the photographs that Klienman posts. I'd suspect that changing the relative proportion of overhead lighting and frontal lighting would be enough.

Aside from that, why would it be hypocritical for Bush to have changed his mind about dying his hair? has he cricized Gore about that lately?

Ah, but you see, in that Bush quote he implied dying your hair says something about the nature of a man. Sure, it's just an amusing throwaway line, but them's the breaks.

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