Presidential stature is a stretch for Edwards
By Beth Teitell
Wednesday, August 4, 2004
I'm not saying he does it intentionally. I'm not saying he doesn't. All I know is that John Edwards [related, bio] is a lot taller than he looks.
You'll see. Bring up the subject and play ``guess his height.'' I guarantee you won't hear anything over 5 foot 9 inches, 5 foot 10 inches tops.
``I don't know,'' one voter replied, ``but he's short, right?''
Guess what? The guy's 6 feet. As tall as President Bush [related, bio]. Way taller than Tom Cruise and Sylvester Stallone.
So why does he look like low ceilings are not a problem?
Maybe it's the eerie resemblance to Michael J. Fox, or the fifth-grade haircut or his cute pixie face.
I ran the question by Alan Flusser, the author of ``Dressing and the Man'' (Harper Collins, 2003). ``Sometimes if you have light coloring the top of your head is not very defined,'' Flusser explained. ``Your eye doesn't go all the way to top, the way it does with Bill Clinton's hair.''
OK, so there's the undefined head thing, and the fact that Edwards is often posed next to the towering, ``Lurch-esque'' John Kerry [related, bio].
Maybe he's a sloucher. I thought I saw his mother mouthing something when the TV cameras flashed on her before his convention speech Wednesday night. Perhaps she was cueing him to ``Stand up straight!''
Edwards, at Kerry's insistence, could be pulling a short one on the American people. As one strategist noted: ``A running mate is really an eternal bridesmaid. Since presidential candidates can't force their running mates to wear poofy-sleeved organza, they have to make them adhere to a few silent, yet understood, rules: You can't be better-looking (but if you are, you have to be shorter, or stockier or have unruly hair); you need to have an accent at least as distinctive (read distracting) from the presidential candidate. Long Jawn isn't nearly as goofy-sounding next to Mr. Y'all.
``Edwards is cuter, even Mrs. Kerry thinks so. So he has to be shorter. They might have told him to slouch a tad when standing next to the Easter Island Head, or stand in a little rut on the podium.''
Or, and here's a sinister thought, maybe he's not 6 feet as he claims.
Karl Rove should research this. He could trick Edwards into standing in front of one of those measuring sticks emblazoned on the door of convenience stores (the ones that allow security cameras to record the height of fleeing criminals).
Or, during the vice-presidential debate, Dick Cheney could pretend to go in for a handshake, but then whip around so he and Edwards are back to back.
Which of course raises another question: How tall is Cheney?
I called the White House, but alas, the Veep was on a plane, as were his press secretary and deputy press secretary. The White House employee vowed to try to contact them, but warned me about ``spotty'' cellphone and Blackberry coverage aloft.
Were Cheney and his people truly unreachable, or was her story the height of secrecy?
Suspicious, I unearthed his height on the Internet: He's 5 foot 10 inches.
Maybe it's all that time he's spent in ``the cave,'' but I swear he looks shorter.
