Can One Reporter Take Down a Presidential Candidate? John Solomon Is Trying to Find Out

By Alexander Zaitchik, AlterNet. Posted August 4, 2007.

Earlier this summer, the Washington Post ran a profile of Joseph Torrenueva, a Beverly Hills Democrat better known these days as John Edwards' barber. The article, which led the paper's "style" section, has achieved minor infamy for the author's solemn assertion, "It is some kind of commentary on the state of American politics that [John Edwards'] hair seems to have attracted as much attention as, say, his position on healthcare."

Has it now? The truth is nobody knew anything about Joe Torrenueva before the Post article appeared. Miniscandals about politicians' haircuts are more like Chia pets than human heads of hair. They don't grow on their own. They require reporters to pursue and water them with investigations into the practices and prices of high-end barbers; only then is national attention focused on who and what presidential candidates pay for their monthly snips. The Torrenueva profile didn't offer "some kind of commentary" on the state of American politics so much as it offered insight into the peculiar priorities of its author, Post money and politics reporter John Solomon.

If Solomon were some deadbeat alt-weekly columnist with a grudge against Edwards, the haircut story would make for mere humor, but the Post has reach far beyond its own pages -- it's one of a handful of media outlets that can establish diehard narratives about politicians that can dog them for decades. The Post in Solomon’s hands is a weapon that can almost single-handedly force Edwards or another candidate off their campaign focus. In the case of Edwards, that means a total distraction from trying to start a national discussion on poverty issues.

No one who has followed Solomon's controversial reporting career was surprised to see his byline on the Torrenueva profile. When he jumped from the Associated Press to the Post at the end of 2006, Solomon took his well-known obsessions with him. Among these are the personal finances of prominent Democrats and, apparently, their boyish bangs.

The only thing that likely surprised Solomon watchers about the Torrenueva profile was its placement in the "style" section. This may have even surprised Solomon himself, as the article appears written with more prime Post real estate in mind. How else to explain Solomon's newsy tone, as if the words of Joe Torrenueva, stylist to the stars, could unleash another season's worth of Hairgate exposes leading all the way up to and through the door of the Edwards' campaign bus?

"Torrenueva's account of his long relationship with Edwards -- the first he's given -- probably guarantees ... the whole issue [won't] go away," he writes. Or so John Solomon can hope!

If Solomon expected placement of the Torrenueva article in the news section, it's understandable. After all, one of his very first stories for the Post set a precedent for landing his petty and misfiring Edwards hit-jobs on A1. Back in January, fresh to the job, Solomon penned an article with Lois Romano that announced the sale of Edwards' Georgetown home for $5.2 million -- or $1.4 million more than he paid for it in 2002. Although practically dripping with innuendo that Edwards had been involved in a sleazy land deal with known criminals and then lied about it, the article noticeably failed to contain any dirt. The article basically reported that Edwards had bought a house in D.C.'s booming real estate market, fixed it up and sold it three years later for a profit. The banality of these facts did not stop Post editors from placing the article above the fold, alongside the latest news from Iraq.

A couple of weeks after Solomon reported on the unremarkable sale of Edwards' Georgetown mansion, Post ombudswoman Deborah Howell conceded that the story was controversial in the paper's own newsroom for being "accurate [but] misleading ... 'gotcha' without the 'gotcha.'"

Howell wasn't the last Post employee to publicly side with readers concerned with the sound of their new hire's axe grinding against the expensively coifed skull of John Edwards. When a Post online chat participant described Solomon's July 5 profile as a one-sided "waste of time and newsprint," Post political reporter Anne E. Kornblut replied, "I hear you."

See more stories tagged with: john edwards, washington post, john solomon

Alexander Zaitchik is a freelance journalist.

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