Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

“But what about the lurkers?”

Historically it was a little unusual for the president to be an incoherent babbling moron.

“When somebody takes the time to draw up a playbook, they’re gonna use it.”

Give the craziest people you know everything they want and hope they don’t ask for more? Great plan.

The arc of history bends toward the same old fuckery.

The next time the wall street journal editorial board speaks the truth will be the first.

All hail the time of the bunny!

Republicans seem to think life begins at the candlelight dinner the night before.

Tick tock motherfuckers!

“Loving your country does not mean lying about its history.”

That’s my take and I am available for criticism at this time.

… riddled with inexplicable and elementary errors of law and fact

Red lights blinking on democracy’s dashboard

Giving in to doom is how we fail to fight for ourselves & one another.

Innocent people do not delay justice.

Not so fun when the rabbit gets the gun, is it?

Jesus, Mary, & Joseph how is that election even close?

Nothing says ‘pro-life’ like letting children go hungry.

I’m starting to think Jesus may have made a mistake saving people with no questions asked.

“What are Republicans afraid of?” Everything.

I’ve spoken to my cat about this, but it doesn’t seem to do any good.

If you don’t believe freedom is for everybody, then the thing you love isn’t freedom, it is privilege.

The republican speaker is a slippery little devil.

It’s all just conspiracy shit beamed down from the mothership.

You are here: Home / Politics / An Unexamined Scandal / The Curious Case of Ron Paul’s Eyebrow

The Curious Case of Ron Paul’s Eyebrow

by | 114 Comments

This post is in: 

Can’t fault a man for putting on his game face.

 Apparently, Ron Paul was wearing fake eyebrows at the GOP debate on Tuesday.  As breathlessly reported by The New York Times:

For those of you not yet riveted by the Republican race, Mr. Paul, the dark-horse libertarian with equally dusky brows, was a victim of hot lights, faulty adhesive or merely a devilish optical illusion when his right eyebrow seemed to dip toward the stage at Dartmouth College.

Seen on television, Mr. Paul appeared to have a second, thinner brow under the one headed south, creating a delicate X over his right eye.

Jesse Benton, a campaign spokesman, insisted that Mr. Paul had been the victim of the elements, namely a heavy pollen season in New Hampshire, and called accusations that he’d been artificially enhancing “stupid” and “insulting.”

“Dr. Paul’s allergies acted up a touch,” Mr. Benton said in an explanation that might raise some, you know, questions.

I have no opinion about Ron Paul’s eyebrow, or the fakeness thereof. I’m trying to be A Better Person and not pick at a person’s appearance. Maybe he has alopecia. Maybe he’s undergoing radiation treatment. Maybe he just thought a pair of supersweet eyebrows would give him that extra somethin’-somethin’ needed to look his Republican co-candidates in the crazy eye.

I mean, who am I to judge? I pluck my eyebrows and when I do so overzealously, I draw them back in with a MAC brush and some eyeshadow.  Granted, I’ve never claimed that eyebrow migration was the result of “allergies” or “the elements.”  What does that mean, anyway? Was there a tiny tornado that swept across Ron Paul’s face while he was going head-to-head with Herman Cain?  We’ll never know.

Point is, I don’t give a rat’s ass.

As YAFB over at Rumproast notes, however, the curious case of Ron Paul’s eyebrow has created quite a stir:

Some have found this disturbance in Mr. Paul’s face field difficult to ignore. I decided to take a pseudo-random sample of opinions on the subject, and found that David Magee of the International Business Times was one:

The Republican debate on Bloomberg is underway at Dartmouth, and the focus is on something critical to America: The economy. But I’ve barely heard a word said in the first 18 minutes of the debate because I’m so concerned about Ron Paul’s fake eyebrow, which is falling off.

At first, I thought it must be a mistake—that maybe the Texas Congressman running for the GOP presidential nomination was being shown in a strange set let on the Bloomberg TV broadcast.

But as Paul kept talking in his first turn to answer a question at the roundtable-style debate, hosted by Charlie Rose and sponsored by Bloomberg and The Washington Post, it was clear that he was wearing fake eyebrows and that his right eyebrow—showing up on the left on TV, was falling off.

Some may take it as a commentary on the quality of the debate, or perhaps even the candidates, that this was the viewer’s primary focus. Some might even be a little abashed at drawing attention to it, lest it mask some health condition that would in retrospect render the incautious observer a cad for passing comment. Not Mr. Magee, who warms to his theme:

Ron Paul is wearing fake eyebrows, and I can never take the man serious again as a candidate for president. Paul is entertaining—especially tonight—and he’s got some interesting positions, like the one that the Federal Reserve is America’s anti-Christ. But we can’t have a man in the White House who wears fake eyebrows, and poor ones at that.

~snip~

But others are apparently more wishy-washy:

why the f*ck would they put fake eyebrows on RP??
..cut the gay crap altogether campaign. no douchebag man tans, no fake eyebrows, no BS ever..

I didn’t notice during the debates, but I just went back to check the Ron Paul highlight reel. I have to admit, it does look like his eyebrow is falling off. So yes, I now believe he was wearing fake eyebrows.

The question then remains, how do I feel about that? It makes me disappointed with the campaign and his advisers. One of the biggest pluses of Ron Paul is that he is real, honest, and earnest. It’s a bit maddening that the campaign can’t realize a big draw of Ron Paul’s is that he is not a plastic man.

(read the rest)

So there you have it.  Looks like this is shaping up to be Ron Paul’s Achilles eyebrow heel.

You know — sort of like President Obama’s latent Kenyanism, or the fact that his birth name is Chip Hitler.

[via Rumproast]

[cross-posted at Angry Black Lady Chronicles]

Reader Interactions

114Comments

  7. 7.

    SiubhanDuinne

    LOL! All the ads are for Makeup Academy and Bare Minerals.

    I love algorithms, I truly do.

  11. 11.

    TooManyJens

    ..cut the gay crap altogether campaign.

    Nice touch.

    So, ABL, when you say “Can’t fault a man for putting on his game face,” are you thinking “game face” as in Buffy the Vampire Slayer? ‘Cause now I am.

  13. 13.

    RossInDetroit

    Just gonna copy the FB post I put up when I spotted this little tempest in the Times:

    “False eyebrows? I mean, I’m accustomed to politicians basically being totally invented from scratch for the campaign, but false EYEBROWS?”

  15. 15.

    RossInDetroit

    This is the second eyebrow related news event recently. The last was about Madoff’s eyebrows, which are dark unlike his white hair.
    I think it was Slate, but someone felt it was necessary to look into it. They found that, yes, you can have white hair and dark eyebrows. They included a ‘gallery’ of men so colored, including IIRC Scorsese.
    I could have told them that. I’ve had white hair and black eyebrows for 20 years.

  17. 17.

    joeshabadoo

    “Point is, I don’t give a rat’s ass.”

    Then don’t make an entire post about it with it in the headline and a picture of it as well.

    It drives me crazy when people say they don’t care about something to try to make them seem above it only to dive into the mud immediately after. Just own up to talking abut something rididulous but shallow.

  18. 18.

    joeshabadoo

    “Point is, I don’t give a rat’s ass.”

    Then don’t make an entire post about it with it in the headline and a picture of it as well.

    It drives me crazy when people say they don’t care about something to try to make them seem above it only to dive into the mud immediately after. Just own up to talking abut something ridiculous but shallow.

  22. 22.

    bloodstar

    Passive Aggressive post. Obviously the case of Obama’s changing hair color is equally important and deserved a full post from ABL as well, right?

    Your posts tend to be interesting, ABL, but this is an absolute miss and waste of time, yours and mine.

    (and to go meta, I’m wasting even more time writing this, but I’m watching Project Runway so in theory the time is wasted anyway ;)

  25. 25.

    Steph

    So am I the only one who remembers Police Academy 3, where Mauser’s eyebrows gets ripped off, gets replaced by furry caterpillars, which twitch and fall off in subsequent scenes?

  27. 27.

    Brian S

    @joeshabadoo: @bloodstar: You know, you fuckers have this magical ability to not comment on, or even click on, any post you think its a waste of time. Honest you do. And it’s a lot more innerly satisfying than being a douche in a comment stream.

  28. 28.

    The Moar You Know

    Real Americans have Real Eyebrows.

    A fake independent spouting fake philosophy and fake economics, being pimped by a fake grassroots movement, but the thing that the Paultards can’t handle is that the guy has fake eyebrows.

    I swear, this country. Damn.

  31. 31.

    MacKenna

    Not sure what advantage fake eyebrows give a person but tell ya what, I’d love the Daily Show to interview Paul’s wacked out stylist. I’m betting it’s Rand (sideline).

  32. 32.

    Thoughtful Black Co-Citizen

    The posts at 16 & 20 are interesting because I’m reading C. Mieville’s Kraken. When I read these two posts I became convinced there’s an international cult, the members of which have devoted themselves to squirting posts exactly like this throughout blog comments sections. When a certain number is achieved the Great MayneFrayme will slip the surly bonds of Earth and knock the moon out of orbit.

    Or something.

  33. 33.

    scav

    Anybody got historical info on whether a country is more likely to implode or explode from the sheer weight of insanity and/or stupidity? We should surely be near critical mass by now.

  35. 35.

    Shade Tail

    @joeshabadoo:

    Are you somehow not able to recognize the *blindingly obvious difference* between a post about a topic, and a post about the media? This was about the media, and how they’re a bunch of dumbshits for obsessing over this.

    Jesus fucking Christ.

  36. 36.

    RossInDetroit

    Honestly, name one thing that Ron Paul has done in this primary campaign that’s more interesting than losing an eyebrow on live TV. I got nothin’.

  37. 37.

    General Stuck

    @Brian S:

    It’s always something.
    It amazes me some of these jackasses show up to pan an ABL thread that in their liking is too serious, and like this one, whine that it isn’t serious enough. On a blog that once had a string of mega comment threads on the wonders of the Neti Pot, another on recommendations for the best socks from the blog owner. And the always popular 1000 comment threads on “cookies”.

    I suspect it’s something else got their goats, and they just can’t help project it onto us all under cloak of pedantry of the absurd.

    edit – then there is the major lame excuse of ‘I usually like your posts, ABL, but this one sucks”

  38. 38.

    ABL

    @bloodstar: I’m quite sure I’m capable of discerning how to spend my time. And if I found an amusing hook warranting a post about Obama’s grey hair, you can rest assured that I will spend the sum total of 15 minutes writing about it just as I can rest assured that you will spend precious minutes of your time bitching about it.

  43. 43.

    joeshabadoo

    @Brian S: I never said I didn’t like the post. I think a politician’s eyebrow falling off in the middle of a debate is hilarious.

    I just don’t like it when someone tries to pretend they are above something they revel in. ABL spends two paragraphs, a vast majority of her writing in this post, telling us she doesn’t give a shit. Its like someone telling us they are a vegetarian as they stuff a steak into their mouth.

  44. 44.

    scav

    @RossInDetroit: A mandatory authenticity check of round-robin eye-brow pulling could be added to their next debate. Would enliven it no end. I mean, they’ve tested them speaking while sitting down and standing and I think the chewing gum and walking test might be a bridge too far.

  45. 45.

    Jason

    Stupid as this is, this is the sort of thing that sinks candidacies in the media age. Post Dean Scream, we dismiss this at our peril. Not that Ron Paul was ever in with a shot anyway.

  47. 47.

    geg6

    I fucking lost it when I saw this earlier today and posted a link in an earlier thread. Too funny. Between dad, with his fake eyebrows, and sonny, with the worst rug I’ve ever seen (and that’s saying something), all Paulites should wear paper bags over their heads out of embarrassment for their worship of two of the biggest losers in all of loserdom. And that’s not even taking their idiotic and hypocritical political convictions into account. It’s like worshipping the geeks on The Big Bang Theory. What a joke.

  48. 48.

    gttim

    Not a fake eyebrow. Just long eyebrow hairs that older men get. I am 50 and mine grow like crazy now. And if you do not keep them trimmed, they can look like that- the inner half of many eyebrows have much more hair than the outer half.

  49. 49.

    MacKenna

    A come on people, no puns yet?

    You could certainly browbeat Paul over this!

    If Paul becomes President will the taxpayer be footing his brow bills?

  53. 53.

    Steve

    I found it funny. I had no idea such a thing as “eyebrow toupees” existed. Why anyone is bothering to debate the effect of this on a candidacy that had zero chance anyway, now that is beyond me.

  54. 54.

    AA+ Bonds

    Herman Cain front page story on FoxNews.com, getting successfully trolled to shit and back over last four hours at least, someone popped a chan on em

    Cain think a lot like I do, the rich should not pay anymore in percentages than the lower income people. Every person in this country if you are under the age of 65 should pay the same percentage. As for voting I think every person should start with 1 vote, for each $1,000. a person pays in taxes they should get an additional vote for each $1,000. Corporations should also get 1 vote for each $1000. in taxes they pay to the fed. This is the only fair way to spread the wealth around, spread the votes around as well.

  55. 55.

    lacp

    Hey, I’ve seen a few episodes of “V” – first it’s an eyebrow, then it’s some skin, and then the full lizard thing. Let’s face it: Ron Paul is an alien. Where is David Icke when you need him most?

  60. 60.

    jl

    It didn’t fall in the soup, and there was no waiter. So there isn’t even a joke there.

    So, what is the fuss about?

    I’d never vote for Paul, but if the biggest problem we have with a President is fake eyebrows, then we will be lucky.

  61. 61.

    Jerry

    60 comments in and no reference to Stan Sitwell, the hairless man on Arrested Development with the fake eyebrows? Shame on you all.

  62. 62.

    Odie Hugh Manatee

    I wonder if Sonny performed eye surgery on Daddy and accidentally slipped, removing his eyebrow. Naah, it’s just the mask falling off in the hot lights.

    Those reptiles need better cooling at their debates.

  63. 63.

    Boots Day

    I guarantee you that some pundit tomorrow will complain about liberals being so unserious that they’ve even started making fun of Ron Paul’s eyebrows.

    It’s 50/50 that that same pundit once mocked Al Gore for wearing earth tones.

  64. 64.

    maya

    That was rather plucky of Rand to don those carpets. So, does this make him a high brow or a low brow? Stay tuned for his next appearance.

    I believe Reagan got around that graying hair problem by the liberal use of red dye 2.

  65. 65.

    AA+ Bonds

    Conditions like seborrheic dermatitis or skin allergies can cause eyebrows to fall out temporarily due to “the elements” as Ron Paul well knows but he also knows that it doesn’t look like a perfectly fine narrow eyebrow when it’s done and I can guarantee he knows that at least a couple other people up there were probably wearing eyebrow toupees (you have to remember these people are incredibly rich and completely removed from real life)

  67. 67.

    Villago Delenda Est

    You know, this is just futher proof that their is absolutely NOTHING about the GOP that is authentic.

    Well, not totally true.

    They are authentically batshit crazy, every last one of them (to include Huntsman who has been pandering to the teatards).

  68. 68.

    Julia Grey

    Not a fake eyebrow. Just long eyebrow hairs that older men get. I am 50 and mine grow like crazy now. And if you do not keep them trimmed, they can look like that- the inner half of many eyebrows have much more hair than the outer half.

    Nice try, but he fixed it over the break at the hour mark, and it started falling off again 30 minutes later.

  69. 69.

    gogol's wife

    @AA+ Bonds:

    What is wrong with small eyebrows on a man? I thought it was the big bushy ones that were unsightly and had to be plucked. Is he trying to look more like Andy Rooney or something?

  71. 71.

    ant

    @joeshabadoo:

    Its like someone telling us they are a vegetarian as they stuff a steak into their mouth.

    I’d have to admit, I rather a fan of the concern troll type blogging.

    Steve Benen is quite good at it. The other day I had a chuckle when he used the same “quite a stir” terminology found in this same post.

    ah yes, here it is….

    http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/political-animal/2011_10/did_jeffress_do_romney_a_favor032715.php

    The whole thing, concern trolling, pretending to be serious.

    Some folks need to get a life.

  73. 73.

    Ash Can

    @jl:

    if the biggest problem we have with a President is fake eyebrows, then we will be lucky.

    Couldn’t agree more. Having said that, though, this whole thread has cracked my shit right up.

    @AA+ Bonds: That blockquote made a piece of my head fall off.

  76. 76.

    brewmn

    Anyone who complains about this post is a Paul-worshiping cultist who’s fee-fees are all hurt because their man finally looks as ridiculous as his platform and history.

    Because to anyone not in thrall to Ron Paul, this is gut-bustingly funny.

  77. 77.

    Thoughtful Black Co-Citizen

    That was rather plucky of Rand to don those carpets.

    Blort, snort. Hahahahaha!

    @AA+ Bonds: I checked some of the other comments and in context the one you pulled isn’t all that extreme. I mean, they’ve firmly established that people who don’t have enough money suck and corporations need to be sucked.

  80. 80.

    J. Michael Neal

    @joeshabadoo: Yep, you caught ABL all right. I suppose that she’ll now have to admit, and face the music for, “Point is, I don’t give a rat’s ass,” being a paraphrase for, “Point is, I don’t give a rat’s ass, except insofar as it’s really fucking funny.”

    Consider your blow for literalism to have been delivered. Except that it isn’t *really* a blow and wasn’t any *actual* delivery. Can’t be too careful.

  81. 81.

    Sly

    The question then remains, how do I feel about that? It makes me disappointed with the campaign and his advisers. One of the biggest pluses of Ron Paul is that he is real, honest, and earnest. It’s a bit maddening that the campaign can’t realize a big draw of Ron Paul’s is that he is not a plastic man.

    Whenever I wonder what drew me to the conclusion that libertarians should never be put in charge of anything, a libertarian is always ready at hand to remind me.

  82. 82.

    anthrosciguy

    As usual, imagine if this were a Democratic candidate. We’d be hearing about this, not in blog posts, but on cable news roundtables for the next two decades.

  83. 83.

    TLR

    You can’t judge a man by his eyebrows, lol. I don’t care if Ron Paul’s eyebrows are left, right, up, down, inside out, or diagonal. He still has my vote. It’s his genius mind and free heart that counts. He’s always had the coolest eyebrows in politics.

  84. 84.

    kathy

    listen, you all clearly do not understand how difficult it is to pull off the false eyebrow. cut a brother some slack!

  85. 85.

    Yutsano

    @J. Michael Neal: I prefer to just regard the haters as whiny little bitches and mostly ignore them. I appreciate your epic takedown though.

    BTW keep an eye on the IRS. The hiring freeze is starting to affect our ability to operate and I think there’s about to be some severe union pushback.

  88. 88.

    Lysana

    @joeshabadoo:

    I just don’t like it when someone tries to pretend they are above something they revel in. ABL spends two paragraphs, a vast majority of her writing in this post, telling us she doesn’t give a shit. Its like someone telling us they are a vegetarian as they stuff a steak into their mouth.

    The fact she’s commenting on the stir it caused instead of how Paul wears fake eyebrows went right over your head. Twice. Bra-VO.

  89. 89.

    eemom

    shit, Iz totally confuzzlerated now.

    First I was told that it is not only uncool, but anti-liberal, to comment on anyone’s personal appearance ever for any reason. Fuck, for all you know this poor man could be suffering from a rare eyebrow disease.

    But then I was told that it is ONLY uncool if people with the physical characteristic in question are not part of the physical characteristic majority. Thus, nothing you could ever say about a standard average weight white man with no actual physical disability would be out of bounds, cuz nobody ever discriminates against standard average weight white men with no actual physical disability.

    So. I guess the eyebrows are fair game. Carry on.

  91. 91.

    amk

    With libtards & teabaggers (is there any difference between the two), it’s always someone else’s fault, even fucking nature’s.

  94. 94.

    Singular

    ABL, I’ve disagreed with a fair few things you’ve written, but generally find your posts interesting and funny – and this was hilarious.

    But have you no shame?

    You’ve made eemom transcend ridiculous. When he fractures the fabric of space-time and we all get sucked into a farce-hole, it’s on you :)

  97. 97.

    Xenos

    @eemom: The eyebrows are fair game because they reveal something the media has hesitated to talk about: Ron Paul was born in 1935. He is older than John McCain!

    That means that should he be elected, he would be 77.5 years old, and would be 80 years old at the end of a first term, and 84.5 years old at the end of a second term.

    Ronald Reagan turned 70 in his first term, and that sets the record.

  98. 98.

    Xenos

    Note: Cain is 66 years old (1945), Mittens is 64 (1947), Perry is 61 (1950). Obama is at least 10 years younger than any possible GOP nominee.

  100. 100.

    Ecks

    ‘@Brian S:

    Chip Hitler de Rothschilde, if you please.

    Actually Chipawungmungo Megakenya Hitler de Rothschilde. A man with one Omigod Do We really know who he is complicated identity.

  101. 101.

    harlana

    At least Bachmann’s fake eyelashes stayed intact, but I’m guessing she has a lot more practice with making sure those babies are fused on!

  102. 102.

    Singular

    @eemom:

    Oops sorry. I’m a Brit so “mom” doesn’t always automatically scan as “mum” for me, especially when combined with other letters.

    Anyway, thanks for clarifying your gender for me. I guess I just had a mental picture of a teenage boy, hunched over his laptop, filled with rage, poised to jump into an ABL thread and vomit out some bullshit false equivalence…

    If you’re intent on warring with her, you could at least choose your battlegrounds more wisely. This smacks of desperation – and obsession.

  104. 104.

    THE

    @Xenos:

    Ron Paul was born in 1935. He is older than John McCain!

    I’ll bet his eyebrows are even older.
    Maybe one of them died from old age.

  105. 105.

    Ivan Ivanovich Renko

    @Mike in NC: Oh, THANK YOU! I’ve been trying like hell to remember where I saw that!

    eta: Oh, okay, it was “Vic Hitler” on Hill Street Blues… still frickin’ funny

  106. 106.

    gogol's wife

    @eemom:

    This comment would be valid if people were laughing at his teeny little eyebrows. But that is not the case. They’re laughing at the vanity that led him to wear false eyebrows, and the ineptness of his staff or the staff of the TV outlet that didn’t know how to apply them so they wouldn’t melt off.

  107. 107.

    gogol's wife

    @gogol’s wife:

    Also too, they’re laughing at the disingenuousness of his spokesman, who blamed “allergies” for the appearance of a drooping false eyebrow on his face.

  108. 108.

    eemom

    @Singular:

    I am not and have never been “at war” with ABL. My comment was snarking about some earlier episodes here that are like, way over your head.

    Either you don’t read this blog much or you’re just an idiot. Either way, fuck off.

  109. 109.

    Amir Khalid

    @scav:

    A mandatory authenticity check of round-robin eye-brow pulling could be added to their next debate.

    Brilliant suggestion. I take my (figurative) hat off to you.

    Let it be so.

  114. 114.

    Singular

    @eemom

    I’ve been following BJ for a couple of years now, humbly lurking. Which means, although you win the Longstandingtroll Award, I’ve read many a ~400 comment thread. And several were speckled with your intermittent drivel.

    Fill yer boots.

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