Obama Making DC Safe for Beards?

First the moustache crept into the Beltway. Now, thanks to President-elect Barack Obama, we might have beards making a full-on comeback. The Daily Beast explores the whisker business. "I've been spending a lot of time reading Lincoln," President-elect Barack Obama told 60 Minutes recently. "There is a wisdom there and a humility about his approach to government, even before he was president, that I just find very helpful.'' Both have plenty in common, but only Lincoln spent his transition growing a beard.

“Not that a beard would signify great seriousness anyway,” reports Jamie Malanowski. “In the mid-19th century, facial hair was the sort of thing worn by parliamentarians, clergymen, professors, generals, and royalty. Today, facial hair shows up mostly on actors, rock musicians, and other who aim to signify an artistic temperament, or on certain people who understand economics (Ben Bernanke, Paul Krugman, Jon Corzine.) Politicians with facial hair are very rare. Indeed, if the Obama-Biden administration completes its term still clean-shaven, an entire century will have passed since we had a president with facial hair (William Howard Taft).”