Who Said The Wet Head Is Dead

This week, New York Senate candidate Hillary Clinton performed perhaps the most important act of a New York State resident. She voted. In fact, she was one of the first in line at the public school near her new Chappaqua home. Just after the polls opened at 7 a.m. there she was, the new resident: avid and bright eyed and sporting a brand new hairdo, so we thought.

It's a fresh look that takes years off her face, hair master Brad Jones told the New York Post. Jones should know; he does Johnny Depp's hair.

The Post raved: "Style Swamis Swoon." The London Times hailed: "St. Joan." And then came the inevitable critiques: It looks like she's deliberately gone for the common touch to get a few more votes. It's less of a stateswoman look - more of the typical American housewife, the Scottish Daily Record noted.

But Hillary's campaign denied the cut. Clinton spokeswoman Toby Graff told the Washington Post: It's not a new hairdo. She just voted very early in the morning, and she didn't have time to dry it.

OK.

So why deny the cut, one might ask, when there are so many other accusations to focus on? Like, perhaps, her likely GOP opponent, New York Mayor Rudy Guiliani. The mayor claims Mrs. Clinton would vote to gut our armed forces if she gets to the Senate. And what about the report in the Los Angeles Times that accuses Mrs. Clinton and her chief strategist, Harold Ickes, of campaign finance abuses?

The answer is: another day, another slur. The Clinton campaign is so barraged with accusations from every side, from Tip-Gate to Captain Jack; the immediate reaction seems to be deny first, assess later. And that has its penalties.

Denying the issue seems only makes it bigger, detracting from the real business at hand. For instance, Hillary Clinton took a strong stand on gun control this week, in the wake of the shooting of a Michigan six year old by a classmate.

There has been a lost opportunity because New York City has not joined in this effort, Mrs. Clinton said. Probably the people of New York City have as much or more to gain from such a code of conduct and changes in the way that the gun manufacturers do business as any people anywhere in the country.

The lost opportunity was that the message got lost in her hair. Newspapers were far more interested in her coif than her political agenda.