Biden's Helmet (Hair Plugs for Clowns is Outed, Again)

Politic ^ | 8/24/08 | Avi Zenilman

[Cinnamon Girl]

It is a fraying, combed-back helmet that barely covers a longtime fact of Washington life: The senator from Delaware has taken steps to pre-empt baldness.

The most common hypothesis is that he received a hair transplant, where follicles from the bushier back of the head are grafted onto fading spots closer to the front of the dome.

In 1987, a Washington Post reporter asked him to confirm the theory. "Guess," he responded. "I've got to keep some mystery in my life."

A quick Politico survey of stylists and hair transplant surgeons — some of whom have followed Biden’s career path for years, while others didn’t know about him until yesterday — found that there was little mystery.

“When he had darker hair it was pretty obvious, he had larger plugs,” said Dr. Michael Beehner, medical director of the Saratoga Hair Transplant Center in New York. “With the lightening of his hair, it looks much, much better now.”

“Years ago, it was much more detectable,” added a surgeon from the Midwest who refused to be identified. The pattern of Biden’s hairline, according to him, did not follow the normal path of baldness.

Until the late 1980s, according to Beehner, the only method of hair transplantation involved “plugs” that each contained 15 to 30 hairs. If executed well, they could be lined up to create a solid wall of hair. Today, it’s different — and much less visible. “They use little tiny grafts,” Beehner said. “And a typical session is 1,000 to 2,000 grafts.”

[Cinnamon Girl]

Draft dodger or GRAFT dodger? You make the call.

[Red Badger]

Graft codger.............

[al baby]

Butt plug Biden

[ReleaseTheHounds]

Plugs for Slugs!

[Red Badger]

[cricket]

Graft codger.............

LOL!/ and a 'winner'. . .

[Wolfie]

Can we get a consensus on which way the major candidates wipe? I want to be fully informed.

[Steely Tom]

I remember the picture. It was in our local newspaper, in about 1977. Biden was one of the first to have the procedure. His head looked like someone had put a colander over it and drilled through the holes. He probably had 50 of them.

The procedure was quite new at the time. Biden was probably one of the first to get it.

[al_c]

[laotzu]

Fortunately, losing my hair is not something I will have to worry about. It would really suck to go bald, and hair plugs would certainly be something I would consider.

Of all the things to ride this guy about, this is pretty lame.

[Red Badger]

Or could we say “The Fartful Codger”?......

[McGruff]

I'd love to see a big wind storm catch Sen. Combover during the convention. I'm sure CNN would cut to a car chase or something.

[palomonte]

he should ask for a refund - unless he didn’t pay for the plugs in the first place.

with all of that fertilizer in his head - one would think that anything would grow there - alas.

[Cinnamon Girl]

I wish I knew how to photoshop because I'd love to try some different hair styles on Biden. If he's going to try to cover up the bald, why not go whole hog?

[E. Pluribus Unum]

Spray-On Hair

[Albion Wilde]

[Dr. Bogus Pachysandra]

Dem bumper sticker
“OBUTT/PLUGS 08”

[Cinnamon Girl]

What's wrong with being bald?

[USS Alaska]

Hair plugs in his head, and a biden pacifier for other orifices.

[PUGACHEV]

Look, I'll end any mystery here: Biden has hair transplants. I met him back in the early ‘70s, which must have been not long after it had been done. The incident sticks in my memory as one of the worst hair transplant jobs I had ever seen before or since. The plugs were huge: it looked like the procedure was done with kitchen utensils. And painful? Undoubtedly! Even the appearance of it caused an involuntary wince