The John Kerry Post of the Day

My latest discovery about my favorite cheese-eating surrendermonkey-looking Ketchup King cum Presidential candidate:

Yesterday's post about Kerry's sporting life apparently missed a key detail. Just like all American sportsmen, Kerry realizes the importance of a good haircut before exerting himself. That's why he needed his hairdresser to stroll out to see him, as noted by the New York Post's Lloyd Grove...

We have to bring back an America that values work and honors working people, day in and day out," Kerry urged in a recent stump speech. But when every campaign stop is a photo op, even a man of the people needs a high-quality haircut.

I hear that when Kerry was in Portland, Ore., last weekend preparing to windsurf on the Columbia River Gorge, he flew his Washington-based hairstylist, Isabelle Goetz, across the country to give him a camera-ready trim.

A knowledgeable source told me that the French-born Goetz - who tends the Massachusetts senator's mane while also caring for Sen. Hillary Clinton's coiffure - caught up with the candidate in Portland on Friday (after flying commercial, I'm told), trimmed his luxuriant salt-and-pepper locks and then returned to Washington the same night. But because of light breezes on Saturday, Kerry's windsurfing photo op never came off.

It was unclear yesterday how much the haircut cost, or who paid: the husband of Heinz ketchup heiress Teresa Heinz Kerry or the Kerry campaign. Kerry communications director Stephanie Cutter didn't respond to my detailed E-mail and voice-mail messages.

Goetz - who's a popular and busy woman in the Washington salon of celebrity-stylist Cristophe - told The Washington Post three years ago that she typically charged Kerry $75 for a haircut. But that 2001 fee would not have included a last-minute round-trip plane ticket (today around $1,450 for a coach seat on American Airlines) or a whole day of Goetz's valuable time.

Remember yesterday when Kerry tried to claim that his fellow wind-surfers included plumbers and construction workers? How many of them have hairdressers? As anyone who knows me can testify, I'm probably very jealous of the fact that Kerry was blessed with genes that allow him to avoid thinking about Rogaine. But let's be honest here -- how many plumbers go to see a hairdresser, let alone a French-born one?

Maybe she's one of the foreign leaders Kerry was talking about when he said foreign leaders support him. But then, her picture should appear on their official website.