Way back in 1976, the New York Times must have known that Trump would eventually become a Republican presidential candidate, because they were already drooling over him:
He is tall, lean and blond, with dazzling white teeth, and he looks ever so much like Robert Redford.
It’s not the full Thune treatment:
The first thing everybody knows about him is that he is tall (6 feet 4 inches), tanned (in a prairie, sun-chapped sort of way) and handsome (John McCain jokes that if he had Thune’s face he’d be president right now).
This is my all-time favorite, about Chris Christie:
Seriously though, watch out for Christie after the weight loss, he’s a handsome devil.
Steeplejack
Yeah, no. I think I’ll stick with Sade’s song and let this thread go.
Alexandra
Missed this kinda stuff. :)
PaulW
It’s all about the good looks and bad manners.
Yup. the mainstream media is basically 7th graders.
dmsilev
Chris Matthews on Fred Thompson, still a classic.
DougJ
@Alexandra:
Your collection of quotes about Christie was the best.
Amir Khalid
I thought politics was supposed to be show business for ugly people.
Quicksand
Those guys send little starbursts through the screen!
Derelict
Sure, if elected, this man will be setting policies that affect your daily life and the lives of your children in ways both subtle and profound. This man will have huge amounts of power over vast swaths of people around the world.
So it is imperative that you base your vote on whether he’s handsome, and whether you think he’d be an okay guy to share a brewski with.
FlipYrWhig
@Amir Khalid: Still is. Handsome for politics is ugly for Hollywood.
Jeffro
@Quicksand: And a thrill up your leg!
Tommy
@dmsilev:
I guess I am behind the times because I don’t know anybody that uses English Leather or Aqua Velva.
Chris
Wow.
Just wow.
And people bitch that the media allegedly drooled over Obama.
Roger Moore
@Derelict:
Because if the media swoons over him now, you can be sure they’ll be extra careful to vet his every statement for accuracy. I swear, we ought to make a habit of picking a candidate the media hates, because that’s the only guarantee they’ll actually do their job and investigate the administration thoroughly, rather than just taking whatever the government says at face value.
Chris
@Derelict:
I’m not sure if the media actually thinks that, or thinks the stupid herds of sheep colloquially called “the voters” are too dumb to vote on anything else.
Probably both.
Mustang Bobby
@dmsilev: In the ’70’s it was Aramis and Benson & Hedges Menthols, and they were as gay as pink shoes.
MomSense
@Steeplejack:
Yes, Sade is always a great choice.
mai naem mobile
Is this Maureen Dowd?
Alexandra
@DougJ:
Just wait for the corresponding comments about Hillary Clinton (sorry, Bernie fans). One point for every ‘tired’ you read, two points for ‘likable’, five for comments about her hair.
MomSense
@Derelict:
Speaking of being ridiculously good looking, when I see your nym I always pronounce it with an e at the end. I can’t help it.
JPL
Christie had surgery to aid in weight loss and whether or not he chose to do the procedure for health or appearance, isn’t really important. I haven’t noticed a significant loss though. How come?
Bobby B.
I’ve got body parts that are tanned in a prairie, sun-chapped sort of way, but nobody’s ever described them so.
DougJ
@Alexandra:
How many points for “pantsuit”?
DougJ
@Steeplejack:
It’s a reference to that song being in the last Robert Redford movie anyone saw (“Indecent Proposal”).
Botsplainer
The “larger than life” worship of the born elite always seemed to be a Manhattan thing to me.
ET
The Donald has never been handsome. Rich does not equal handsome.
Alexandra
@DougJ:
None. It’s so 2008. A bit like ‘maverick’.
Good times.
Betty Cracker
@JPL: I’ve read that he has lost a considerable amount, and he does look somewhat thinner. It’s just that he was so very obese that it’s hard to tell.
@Botsplainer: Probably because NYC is the center of the media universe. In reality, dopey celebrity worship seems universal.
JPL
Hilary is not empathetic.
Lavocat
As the Rude Pundit might say – they’re sucking as many cocks as they can get their mouths around.
Hal
Was Redford deformed then?
bemused
I’ve always been mystified how Republicans attach dreamboat physical characteristics to the politicos they support, Fred Thompson, Donald Rumsfeld, GW Bush…
Please tell me that Christie a handsome devil after weight loss was snark although I have to agree with devil.
I don’t think anyone has tried to make Trump into a hottie yet but I may have missed it.
Roger Moore
@Lavocat:
They should go and eat a bag of salted dicks instead.
Steeplejack
@DougJ:
Seriously? That seems too “inside baseball” even for an insular, self-referential blog with its own arcane language.
And now we’re supposed to get not only the song references but the meta-references behind them? Is any of this going to be on the final?
beltane
@ET: Come on, everyone knows that if you’re rich enough, you can pay people to tell you how handsome, or talented, or smart you are.
bemused
@bemused:
Oops, I see I didn’t read carefully and catch the 1976 Trump comparison to Redford. Even in 1976, just no.
Can’t imagine how media can pretty up Trump today though I’m sure there a few who would take a stab at it.
beltane
@bemused: The media will tout Trump as being a virile older man or something along those lines. They are just as shameless as he is.
cmorenc
Actually, photos the young Donald Trump in his mid to late 20s bears an uncanny resemblance to the young Tucker Carlson, minus the bowtie.
JPL
@Betty Cracker: His campaign might run out of money before he achieves his goal then.
ruemara
Donald Trump has never been handsome. In fact, it’s amazing Ivanka Trump is good-looking, since both her parents were ugly. It’s like two wrongs making a right. Plus I detest this song. One of my first roommates used to play it on a loop when she fought with her boyfriend. Ugh.
Another Holocene Human
@Tommy: They still sold Aqua Velva at CVS when I worked there umpteen years ago (before Caremark), but it had the look of one of those dated, “orphan” brands with an aging clientele.
Actually, I don’t remember ever ringing it up.
shell
And right after that, they go back to their Tiger Beat magazines and braiding each others hair.
NotMax
Well, guess the swimsuit competition on August 6 is a lock then, huh?
(Gratuitous pic.)
Lurking Canadian
@Tommy: I think that’s the point. He’s trying to evoke an old-school, this-guy’s-like-your-dad image.
Another Holocene Human
@JPL: Maybe because his clothes are tailored?
schrodinger's cat
MSM bots seem to have a lot of weird man-crushes. Last time around it was Fred Thompson who was handsome. The dude is doddering, he was handsome decades ago, if that, not in 2008.
muddy
I remember around the time of the vice-presidental debates there was an effort to refer to Cheney as “The Silver Fox”. ugh!!
I bet he made it up himself.
Another Holocene Human
@DougJ: Why does everyone think Sade is a lesbian? She’s like a lesbian icon.
shell
More like the ‘New Head of Slytherin.’
Another Holocene Human
@ruemara: lol
schrodinger's cat
Robert Redford is kinda wooden and not all that handsome. Of the leading men of that era, I prefer Eastwood to Redford. Of course, YMMV.
And no, Trump is not handsome.
Another Holocene Human
@schrodinger’s cat: They’re wearing money-and-power goggles. You get them not by drinking all night but by pursuing access.
Ken
This may not be good for Trump. The Left Behind books described Nicolae Carpathia, the Antichrist, as looking like a young Robert Redford, and a significant fraction of the Republican base thinks those books are a documentary.
Another Holocene Human
@shell: Don’t tell Rick Scott.
NotMax
@Another Holocene Human
What the world needs is a Lesbicon.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Egad. I followed the link. Listicles and Kardashian updates notwithstanding, Buzzfeed’s political side really is Politico Jr. I think their chief politicial whatever is an ex-Politico staffer and Morning Joe fixture. I saw McKay Coppins on MSNBC the other day and it was for all the world as if Ron Fournier had a precociously obnoxious twelve-year-old kid who had had too much sugar that day.
It’s been more than a few months, he* oughta ask for the money back on that surgery.
ETA*: the taxpayers of New Jersey oughta….
schrodinger's cat
Of the GOP crazies from the last vintage. Michelle Bachmann was pretty, except for that crazy eyes.
Josie
@schrodinger’s cat: You forgot Paul Newman.
Randy P
@schrodinger’s cat: I remember hearing when Dan Quayle was announced as the VP for Bush Sr., he was supposed to get the women’s vote for the GOP because he looked like Robert Redford.
I was always amazed that somebody seriously thought that was a factor. Maybe it works on Republican women?
Even if he did look like Redford, which of course he does not.
Frankensteinbeck
Then he goes home, screams, cries, and throws things.
@Roger Moore:
Yeah, that worked out so well with Obama. If they don’t like a candidate, they just repeat defamatory lies without investigation or a hint of skepticism. They really don’t want to do their job, and you can’t make them, nyaah.
Feet up on the desk, out comes Joe Scarborough’s copy of 17, and you’re being ignored.
schrodinger's cat
@Josie: I haven’t really seen any Paul Newman movies when he was a young man. That probably explains why I didn’t think of him.
DougJ
@Steeplejack:
That ad campaign really stuck in my head.
DougJ
@schrodinger’s cat:
I’ve never understood the appeal of Robert Redford. Paul Newman on the other hand…even as a straight guy I can see that appeal very clearly.
Ryan
@DougJ: Did no one see Sneakers?
Randy P
@schrodinger’s cat: Just see if you can find some stills or clips from “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof”. If you go back that far, Brando was considered quite the sex symbol as well.
I like the pretty boys who age well. (But not in a gay way. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.)
Redford kind of grew on me, because my first impression was that “pretty” was his main selling point. But over the years, I got more and more respect for him as an actor, and of course what he did with Sundance changed the film industry. Quite a legacy.
Newman too. The main things I admire about him was his lifelong marriage and his dedication to live theater, as well as all the little entrepreneurial things he was doing at the end of his life.
Leslie Nielson, years before he found fame in those over-the-top comedies like Airplane!, was just one more pretty boy (see the square-jawed space officer in “Forbidden Planet”).
@Ryan: Oh yeah. You don’t see too many movies where math (factorization into large primes) plays a central role.
Chris
@Randy P:
They picked Palin for the same reason, reversed. They don’t learn.
eric
@DougJ: watch redford’s smile and charm in The Way We Were. Newman is a god and McQueen, while not model handsome, was such a cool dude that it made him handsome. So says this straight guy. Currently, big Clive Owen and Idris Elba fan. YMMV
schrodinger's cat
@DougJ: Someone suggested I see the Way We Were. I couldn’t stand it. I found both Streisand and Redford insufferable.
BTW I don’t see Brad Pitt’s appeal either, although I think he is a better actor than Redford. May be I am just not into blonde men.
lol
Actually, it was apparent to the New York Times in 1973 that Trump was destined for the Republican nomination.
MomSense
@Randy P:
I like your list and would add James Garner and Sidnet Poitier. Handsome, intelligent and interesting men.
schrodinger's cat
@Randy P: Brando was quite a hunk in the Street Car Named Desire.
shortstop
@DougJ: I’m with you. Redford has a reserved quality you suspect may not be masking anything that interesting. Newman openly gives off smart and snarky vibes and that’s not even touching on the astounding good looks.
Chris
@Ryan:
I want peace on Earth, and goodwill towards men.
lol
@Ryan:
Or The Candidate.
shortstop
@schrodinger’s cat: truly one of the worst movies of all time.
eric
@shortstop: I just saw Long Hot Summer for the first time, and i will say to all the ladies and men so inclined….watch it.
The Thin Black Duke
@Chris: Well played, sir.
Sneakers is a criminally underrated film.
dogwood
I get a kick out of white males evaluating “handsomeness”. Romney, Huntsman, Ryan, Thompson, now even Christie make the cut. The one politician who is never on the “handsome” list is Barack Obama. Wonder why?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
I think the only Redford movies I’ve ever seen are the two (just two?) he made with Newman, The Sting and Butch Cassidy (Oh, that musical interlude… I didn’t think those could stink up a good movie as bad as they do in the Marx Bros, but that’s the worst). I give Redford props for his environmental activism, and Newman made the only chocolate mint cookie that was as good as the Girl Scouts. And oh yeah, sick kids, but those cookies…
Newman had a great late career. The Verdict is one of my favorite movies, he shoulda won the Oscar for that instead of the consolation prize they gave him for the Tom Cruise Hustler sequel (I disliked Tom Cruise even before he jumped on a couch).
boatboy_srq
@Tommy: isn’t that kind of “mature gentleman’s aura” what Old Spice was for?
shortstop
I have not seen Sneakers. It sounds like I need to, huh?
schrodinger's cat
@dogwood: Barack Obama is handsome, smart and cool. That’s why the Punditubbies can’t stand him.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
and thank you, thank you all, for the ear worm of the English Leather TV jingle from disco days
@schrodinger’s cat: remember Rove’s revealing-more-than-he-thought-it-did “joke” about Obama as the cool guy at the dance who got all the girls?
Chris
@The Thin Black Duke:
It’s got a lot to appeal to me. It’s half heist movie and half espionage thriller, two things I love, plus some lite commentary on the world twenty years later from the point of view of the people who were student radicals in the Nixon years. Combine good actors and a hilarious script…
schrodinger's cat
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: I have not liked Cruise since his Top Gun days. Matt Damon is another leading man who sucks. Interstellar made sense till Damon woke up. His other duds, Syriana and The Good Shepherd. Matt Damon managed to make even the origin story of CIA boring.
boatboy_srq
Watching the GOTea h#rd0n collection over the current crop of candidates I don’t hear a somewhat different Sade tune.
shortstop
@Chris: now I just want to stop work for the day, track it down and watch it. How have I missed this?!
The Thin Black Duke
@Chris: Plus, it’s sentimental without being dishonest or cloying. But Philip Alden Robinson never made another film as good, unfortunately.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@schrodinger’s cat: I like Damon (in spite of his firebaggery), though I can’t remember the last movie I saw him in. And I guess I’m the only person who liked Syriana?
lol
@shortstop:
It’s a *great* heist film and very funny. One of the thing I really like about it is that, ridiculous plot macguffin device aside, it’s a pretty accurate depiction of hacking.
The Thin Black Duke
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: The Bourne movies are very good. They manage to step outside of the giant shadow James Bond cast over the entire genre without being sadistic or misogynist.
Bobby Thomson
Nobody’s Fool. Highly underrated. Both Newman and Willis do some of their best work.
Bobby Thomson
@schrodinger’s cat: he’s a good villain.
Paul in KY
@Tommy: When I was a Freshman in college, there was a wild party going on one night. Saw that this young man who came from a very sheltered environment had gotten outrageously drunk. These other Freshman were being assholes & got him to drink aqua velva. I feel bad about situation, as I didn’t say anything to them & did not report it to RA.
I was just glad (at time) they weren’t focusing on me.
Paul in KY
@Roger Moore: Obviously, you can have your pick of any Democratic candidate.
Chris
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
The only person besides me. I liked it just fine, though I’m not wild about Damon.
@The Thin Black Duke:
I think liking the Ludlum books made me underwhelmed with the movies. (Yes, one of these people).
schrodinger's cat
@Bobby Thomson: In Interstellar, or in general?
eric
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: No. I liked it too
Lynn Dee
I really don’t get the “Thune is handsome” thing. He and Tom Cotton too, BTW, both look like Jughead to me.
mr_gravity
@JPL: They gave him a Lap Band but he ate it.
gian
@DougJ:
He’s got a role in captain America the winter soldier
Pie Happens (opiejeanne)
@schrodinger’s cat: I thought Redford was pretty appealing when he looked like this, back in the day.
http://cp91279.biography.com/Robert-Redford_Early-Life_HD_768x432-16×9.jpg
Pie Happens (opiejeanne)
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: I liked Syriana.