The "Shave John Bolton" movement gets a big media boost with Robin Givhan's piece on the front page of the Washington Post's style section. About time! The man's mustache is completely uncalled for.

But Givhan seems to think Bolton's rug + droopy soupcatcher combo indicates some sort of casual disregard for the Senate and UN, making him inappropriate for the finely-groomed world of ambassadors and diplomats. But that seems exactly the point! As with George Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, and the rest, the idea here is to give off the appearance of not caring for tiny little details and propriety: these men, after all, are thinking weighty thoughts, no time for haircuts! Much like, uh, Albert Einsten.

Yeah, that's it, call it the "eccentric professor principle"—no one ever thinks much of the prof with cropped hair and slick suits; the real brains around town are all lumbering about in sweatpants and oversized beards. Karl Rove's surely behind all this, ordering Bolton to break out the clippers no more than every fifth day. I mean, come on now, this is an administration that takes stage-managing and glossy appearances to soaring new heights; if they thought the 'stache really had to go, they'd pin him down and forcibly liberate that upper lip.