John Kerry's Botoxicity
Whence the Wince?
By MAUREEN DOWD
Published: March 11, 2004
A few years back, some Hollywood TV producers I know were thinking about making a sitcom with Cher. Before they committed, they wanted to be sure that, after all the work she'd had done on her face, Cher could still actually move it.
They went to her house and secretly tested her ability to react, asking questions to elicit various emotions.
With all the fuss about the 60-year-old John Kerry going from Shar-Pei to whippet, I figured a physiognomic quiz might be in order. The candidate's more serene visage has spurred rampant speculation that his attractive 65-year-old wife, Teresa, a Botox aficionado, turned him on to the wrinkle diffuser, which paralyzes the muscles that deepen wrinkles.
How could we elect a president who couldn't show his emotions? After all, the leader of the free world has even more reason to frown, wince and be startled than a sitcom star.
I tracked down Senator Kerry on Tuesday in Evanston, Ill. My plan was to start by needling him into a frown. (Dermatological entrapment.)
I observe that the Republicans have cast him as the melancholy, indecisive Hamlet to President Bush's vigorous Prince Hal.
Nary a Kerry glower. "They'll try to be destructive," he says. "I'm a tough fighter." [Yesterday, he called them "the most crooked, you know, lying group I've ever seen."]
I press on, trying for an extreme facial expression: "Do you think that you were rolled on Iraq by the administration?" "There was a sense of that at first," he replies placidly. "But the answer is no because then Scowcroft and Jim Baker went very public in their dissent about the U.N. and not doing this properly."
Desperate for furrows, I recite unflattering depictions: Roger Simon saying he put the "grave" into gravitas; The New Yorker calling him "sepulchral"; the Republican pollster Kellyanne Conway saying he looks as if he "sucked on a lemon."
"Sometimes it's been my own fault," he says, his voice, and face, stubbornly affectless. "I can be as wild and crazy as the next person."
O.K., I think, I'll go for a wince. I've been struck by the nasty Republican habit of portraying opponents as less than fully masculine. They called John Edwards the "Breck girl" and John Kerry French-looking.
I figure that the skin on Senator Kerry's face will certainly rise at the mention of Dick Cheney's Gridiron speech, teasing that since Botox is related to botulism toxin, maybe David Kay should search for missing biowarfare agents in Senator Kerry's forehead. Is this a way to mock him for an effeminate vanity?
"No, I don't have it," he says coolly. "Vanity or Boxtox?" I ask, grimacing. "I don't have Botox, but whatever their game is, I don't care," he replies without a wisp of a wince. "That sort of thing is so childish. In the end, people will care about real choices that affect their lives."
O.K., I decide, I'll escalate. I broach Hillary Clinton's plans for 2008, with the implication that she and her gang can't be genuinely committed to a Kerry victory. I tell him that after Rudy Giuliani joked at the Gridiron that the one thing he and Hillary had in common was that they were both voting for George W. Bush, Hillary grinned and playfully high-fived him.
Mr. Kerry does not rise to the bait. "I have confidence that Hillary and the president will be part of this team," he says without excess emotion, adding that, unlike Al Gore, he wants Bill Clinton's help.
This isn't working. I have to shock him. I mention Skull and Bones, in the hope that it will show on his skull and bones. But instead of bolting from the room in horror, he simply smiles and notes that he and W. had a "nice" phone conversation.
On the other hand, maybe a poker face could be an advantage in the Oval Office. After all, Hollywood agents get Botox so they can be expressionless while making big deals.
And think of all the pols who could have benefited from modern cosmetic techniques. William Howard Taft could have been liposuctioned. Richard Nixon could have used Botox to stop his sweating, as Fortune 500 execs do now. And Al Gore could have frozen those condescending eyebrows during the 2000 debate.
Finally, I give up. The interview ends with a frown - not John Kerry's.