Ten Years On: George W. Bush's Hair
George W. Bush’s decision to mark the tenth anniversary of Hurricane Katrina with a celebratory speech in New Orleans has raised a lot of questions. One of those questions is, “what the shit happened to his hair?”
Take a look for yourself:
What the shit happened to his hair? https://t.co/LogN6be5Gb
— dan sinker (@dansinker) August 28, 2015
This brief clip of George Bush forcing a stranger to interact with him certainly suggests that the former president is nearly bald on his scalp, with a slightly Trump-esque wisp of side hair combed over his largely bare pate. But one Vine cannot tell the whole story. Here are a few cropped, high-resolution photos of George W. Bush’s head, taken today in New Orleans.
Looking at these, it’s much clearer. George W. Bush is not really bald — yet — but his hairline has receded, and the remaining hair covering his frontal and mid-scalp regions has thinned and lightened. To my eyes, there’s no evidence of Bush employing artificial means to mask his balding. There is combing over happening, but it is not a particularly egregious combover. In fact, he still has quite a bit of fairly thick and dark hair hair for a man his age, and he doesn’t appear to have developed a significant bald spot on the crown of his head. But in a moving image, captured by (I assume) a phone camera, of an image captured by a television camera, shot from above on a bright day, then compressed for web and social sharing, the gray hair over his scalp is barely visible, and the thicker hair appears comically tall and “fluffy.”
Bush was in New Orleans to celebrate the successful exploitation of a crisis by corporatist ideologues and their allies in both parties.
Photos via Getty