Political Faces

Warren Harding swept to the 1920 Republican nomination largely because an Ohio promoter thought "He looked like a President." He won by an unprecedented landslide, 60% of the popular vote.

Are we still voting by appearances? Anything worth chattering about?

On the Democratic presidential ticket the first Black First Lady in-waiting, Michelle Obama (44) has guts and glamour, indisputable professional credentials, and is incredibly smart. There's an unflattering high school photo in her past and she chemically straightens her hair. And they put her in flats so her 5'11" frame doesn't tower over Jill Biden (57). But that's about it.

Dr. Biden, also a very handsome woman, appears to be aging without any knifestyling. Her skin is weathered from outdoor running and she dyes her hair. But that's about it. Yawn.

If they both weren't such fabulous examples of vibrant womanhood, it'd be almost boring.

Obama (47) himself is remarkable for being within the 35% of adult Americans who are at a healthy weight. His ears stick out and he has a gleaming smile. Cartoonists and dentists across the land are celebrating.

Now Joe Biden (64) is a different matter.

Back when the West was won, hair transplants looked like they were accomplished with a pop riveter - the so-called 'doll's hair' look. Until the late 1980s, the best method of hair transplantation involved 'plugs' that each contained 15 to 30 hairs.

Sen. Biden's early career foray into arms and hair control has become a little less obvious over time, thanks to revision with updated transplant techniques and greying hair. Nor was he alone: plugged-in along with him were the late senators William Proxmire and Strom Thurmond.

The right-leaning blogosphere is roundly condemning the Vice Presidential candidate's "poor judgment" for undergoing "expensive cosmetic surgery" and deems it indicative of a character flaw, akin to dishonesty (which already plagues Biden): "a blatant sign of vanity above substance."

Would they feel the same way if it came out that Obama's white sparklers were veneers? After all, the ivories are all capped in Hollywood. (And tinsel town has it's share of balding beaus battling back, too. Rob Schneider, Ben Affleck, Matthew McConaughey, Brendan Fraser, and Tom Hanks have all been rumored to have had hair transplants.)

But now for the Republican half of the ticket. Ladies first.

Cindy McCain (54) has had a little thing for stolen prescription opioids, but is more widely criticized for being "plastic." You'll never find a photo of her with crowsfeet or wrinkled brow. But is it deeper than too much bleach and Botox? Her ears show no obvious signs of a traditional cut-and-pull facelift, but her face is tight, the neck is remarkably taut, and her jaw is free of jowling....something you just don't find in nature. Her face work is as carefully done as Hillary Clinton's. This photo shows those pearls are real.

Pro-life, pro-gun, pro-drilling, abstinence-only creationist, the undeniably beautiful Sarah Palin (44) has received a lot of attention for producing her fifth child virtually undetected. Scott Sloan appears to have the only footage from February showing the Alaskan governor just 8 weeks before she delivered a 6 lbs, 2 oz baby.

Here is her daughter attending the RNC this week in St. Paul, at 5 months pregnant. The photo-op was deliberate, as both John McCain and Sarah Palin greeted the couple-to-be at the MSP airport.

Medically, the timing is curious. Bristol Palin (17) conceived as a 16-year-old junior. Was it in defiance of her parents' prior decision to yank her from her boyfriend's high school midyear and take her home for some eight months? Or was it to finish something she started? There is one menstrual cycle gap between the two pregnancies.

The real significance of this for the Elephant and the presidential contest is thoughtfully discussed here. I predict conservative Christian voters will love this fertile family fable, for the same reasons they voted to sit down and have a beer with recovering alcoholic GWB.

"First Dude" Todd Palin is a good 'ol boy with nothing knifestyle-worthy. At most, his elopement with the someday VP candidate coincided with the conception of his first born, Track (can't tell for sure since the Bristol and Track's birthdates have been scrubbed.)

Presidential nominee John McCain's (72) war injuries and torture have left him with limited range of motion in his arms. (According to fellow POW cellmate Colonel Bud Day, McCain had 3 fractures in his right arm, a fractured right knee, dislocated left arm, bayoneted left leg– before his captors starved him and hung him by his arms). That and a loose zipper seem to be his main contribution to today's subject.

To hear more, tune in to hear Anne explore it all with Kevyn Burger on FM107.1 at 10am Thursday.

Christmas Cleavage

What festive cleavage are you wearing this holiday season? Next to finishing up the gift shopping, I'm sure the first thing on your mind is how to dress up your breasts. At the cocktail party I attended last weekend, I was accused of a Madame X look, a reference to John Singer Sargent's infamous 1884 portrait of the American-born Paris socialite, Judith Gautreau. Her arsenic white décolleté and scandalous slipped shoulder strap drove Sargent (and the painting) out of town.

Think times have changed? Last July, when Hillary Clinton displayed even a very modest amount of chest the blogosphere went wild.

Cleavage is simply the cleft created by the partial exposure of a woman's breasts in a low-cut neckline. Or, if you're a surgeon, it's the intermammary sulcus (fun people, aren't they?). So what gives it the power to shake the world, century after century? Context, context, context. That and men are irrational over it.

Breast cleavage has been a modern, clothed phenomenon; it didn't exist in the Garden of Eden. Any tight, well-structured bodice can lift the breasts upwards and inwards (that was the wonderful in Wonderbra – as opposed to Maidenform lift and separate promise).

Prior to the advent of implants, a large busted woman's breasts merged together under pressure; cleavage became a crevice. Think Bette Midler. A really well engineered bodice can cantilever the breasts in such a way that this is minimized. Think Isaac Mizrahi observations about Scarlett Johansson's Golden Globes dress.

But when it comes to breast implants, the width of the sulcus area (cleavage) is determined by the attachments of the skin to the peri-osteal tissue covering sternum (breast bone) and by the medial attachments of the pectoralis major muscle when implants are in the sub-muscular position.

If those natural attachments are lost a host of uncorrectable deformities distort the cleavage including synmastia, the "uniboob" deformity. This can result from over aggressive dissection towards the midline, particularly in a subglandular (over the muscle) placement. Very large implants, repeated over time can have similar results. Think Pamela Anderson.

Some women have very little fatty tissue overlying the sternum so there's nothing to soften the contour transition from breasts to sternum. This causes the space between the breasts to appear wide. Since the implants must be centered behind the nipples, it's very hard to camouflage, particularly with a subglandular placement. Think Victoria Beckham. (This is something she previously denied until court papers were released in 2005 proving she had undergone augmentation surgery; it's rumored she had revision surgery prior to touring this month. Looks like it to me.)

One woman has written a tome on doing it right. Elisabeth Squires, author of Boobs: A Guide to Your Girls, thinks even older women can attractively show off cleavage, as Helen Mirren (61) does at every awards show. But beware: "If a woman of a certain age squeezes her girls together, she'll get the wrinkled, crepelike look. That's not good." Mirren's plunging bodices carefully avoid that.

Now back to the festive part. Here we have our Christmas party Goofus and Gallant example. For the office holiday party, author Squires's advice is: "[i]f cleavage isn't in your job description, don't put it in." Sorry, Britney. But the adults-only cocktail party? You've got it, Paris. Shake their world: tasteful cleavage and heels are the way to go (but put on the other stocking, puh-leeze).

Be sure and tune in FM107.1 to hear an expanded exploration of celebratory cleavage with Colleen Kruse this Thursday at 10:00am CST, subbing in for Kevyn Burger.



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Looking Your Age

Trawling dating websites looking for an appealing late-40s to early-50s man can be a depressing experience. Most of them are older, uglier, and less fit then the women who are looking for them, yet those same men specify wanting women who are younger than themselves. What's up? What on earth do they see in the mirror?

Women that same age see something entirely different in every reflective surface they pass by. And they feel pressure to do something about the changes they see. The mere availability of procedures has heightened the pressure on women to consider a level of intervention that until recently was indulged in by only the famous or the rich. Women in America are involved in an internal debate, a negotiation with appearance, about how much they are willing to intervene.

Even AARP, the bastion to combat ageism, is jumping on the bandwagon with this month's magazine: Look Younger Now: Erase Ten Years (or More)! Is looking one's age something to be disdained, just on principle? Or a matter to be treated like shaving or a manicure? And where do you draw the line and why? Hip haircut? color? teeth whitened? veneers? or the blue plate special: head-to-toe surgery?

Three of the most recognized women in power today, Hillary Rodham Clinton (59), Oprah Winfrey (52), and Condoleezza Rice (53), have each answered the question in different ways.

Hillary Clinton has long been accused of having plastic surgery performed on her face, most loathsomely by John Spenser. Clinton adviser Howard Wolfson says she has had no plastic surgery or similar work. As an elected official, she's very well styled, her makeup and hair are perfect, and with good lighting she photographs well. Or not. She shows no obvious signs of a traditional cut and drape facelift. She did, however, seek out plastic surgery consultations and a lot is possible without obvious scarring. The surgeons' gossip is that work was done during & after the impeachment period when she was out of the public eye. If she has chosen an intervention, it was done very discreetly.

Billionaire Oprah Winfrey (52) can afford anything. While she has explored the topic on her show, Oprah categorically denies having any plastic or gastric surgery. Given her brilliant smile and difficult childhood, she most likely has had her teeth capped and probably subscribes to the usual Hollywood upkeep of botox. Her on-air and covergirl personna is carefully crafted to make the most of her looks. But remember, it takes hours, hours, of prep at the hands of professionals to achieve that glamour.

Condi Rice (53) is often caricatured for her gap tooth smile & famously furrowed glabellar scowl. But she's a natural: that's all original equipment there and she does her own hair and makeup. (None of these three women wear their hair naturally.) Her African-American heritage gives her an edge: her skin is thicker and less prone to wrinkling at any age, even with the cares of state.

At 50 you don't feel old. Where do you draw the line about looking your age? The Dove Pro-age campaign wants you to embrace middle age, even if broadcasters won't. Pro-age is about aging in the best way possible. Bobbi Brown in her new book Living Beauty advises that drastic changes are not needed. You are not walking the red carpet nor appearing on prime time media outlets, so "let go of some of the pressure," says Brown. Use any of the options available that you feel comfortable with– but remember, it's not about defying age, turning back the hands of time, or looking 10 years younger.

It's about looking good at the age you are.



Want this look? According to technique a facial plastic surgeon may charge: standard face lift $6,000-$15,000; midface lift $4,000-$10,000; threadlift face lift $2,000-$6000. In addition, eyelid surgery, brow lift surgery, and facial liposuction can be performed and increase the cost of treatment.