The Hair of the "Two Americas" Dog that Bit John Edwards

Those $400 haircuts have come back to bite John Edwards.

WASHINGTON -- Democrat John Edwards is trying to get out of a hairy situation, reimbursing his presidential campaign $800 for two visits with a Beverly Hills stylist.

Two $400 cuts by stylist Joseph Torrenueva, who told The Associated Press that the former North Carolina senator is a longtime client, showed up on Edwards' campaign spending reports filed this weekend. Edwards spokesman Eric Schultz said it never should have been there.

"The bill was sent to the campaign. It was inadvertently paid," Schultz said. "John Edwards will be reimbursing the campaign."

What's more embarrassing to Edwards?

The fact that he "inadvertently" used campaign funds for his $400 trims?

The fact that he gets $400 haircuts?

That's a tough call.

...Federal Election Commission records show Edwards' campaign also spent $250 in services from Designworks Salon in Dubuque, Iowa, and $225 in services from the Pink Sapphire in Manchester, N.H.

Schultz said those services were legitimate campaign expenditures to prepare Edwards for media appearances.

What makes those expenses legitimate and not the others?

I don't get the distinction.

Political candidates often have hair and makeup done before media appearances. Edwards rival Hillary Rodham Clinton got some attention last year when her campaign paid $2,500 for two hairstyling sessions that the campaign classified as media production expenses.

WOW!

Hillary needed to spend $2,500 on two hairstyling sessions!

Apparently, she required A LOT of work.

That's really embarrassing!!!

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Read more details about John Edwards' "nice" hair. His stylist tells all!

"Man Behind Pricey 'Dos Details Long Relationship"

Torrenueva said one haircut during the 2004 presidential race cost $1,250 because he traveled to Atlanta and lost two days of work.

"He has nice hair," the stylist said of Edwards in an interview. "I try to make the man handsome, strong, more mature and these are the things, as an expert, that's what we do."

It is some kind of commentary on the state of American politics that as Edwards has campaigned for president, vice president and now president again, his hair seems to have attracted as much attention as, say, his position on health care. But when his campaign reported in April that it had paid for two of his haircuts at $400 each, the political damage was immediate. With each punch line on late night TV his image as a self-styled populist making poverty his signature issue was further eroded.

Edwards said that he was embarrassed by the cost and that he "didn't know it would be that expensive," suggesting the haircuts were some kind of aberration given by "that guy" his staff had arranged. His wife, Elizabeth, made lots of jokes at her husband's expense and the campaign wished the whole issue would go away.

But Torrenueva's account of his long relationship with Edwards -- the first he's given -- probably guarantees that won't happen quite yet. And if $400 seemed a lot for a haircut, how about one for three times that?

Asked for a comment, the Edwards campaign said this week that Edwards had arranged for the stylist to give him numerous cuts over the past four years. But it said that a personal assistant handled paying for the haircuts and that Edwards didn't realize how much they cost.