Andrew Roberts on the folly of 'looking presidential'  "An
enormous amount of the media coverage of presidential candidates
is focused on whether or not he (or, very rarely, she) 'looks
presidential,'" writes historian Andrew Roberts in The Wall
Street Journal. But, Roberts wonders, what does this mean and
why does it matter? "Looking presidential can be broadly
translated to mean being around 6 feet tall, relatively slim and
broad-shouldered, and having a full head of preferably pepper-
and-salt-colored hair and a ready, winning smile." America
hasn't always concerned itself with finding the right physical
profile in its leaders, and it's a good thing, too, he says.
"'There's no way they can run this Lincoln dude,' one can hear
the media pundit telling a colleague in 1860." Lincoln's odd
facial hair wasn't even conventional in his time, Roberts
writes. Nor would today's public likely have warmed to the
5-foot-8, bespectacled Teddy Roosevelt or the 335-pound Howard
Taft. "Andrew Jackson's long wavy hair, Georg