Presidents of the United States are not best known for their hairstyles: Dwight Eisenhower had not a forehead, but a five-head. John Adams? An abomination resembling a boiled egg. Lyndon B. Johnson and Richard M. Nixon sported the same swept-back widow’s peak, frustrating American men’s fashion for an entire decade. The most famous of presidential follicular adornment most certainly belonged to George Washington, who paraded about in a powdered mullet curled on the edges. Historians now inform us that this was in fact the general’s real hair.

Monstrosities all, no doubt. But the lowly comb-over—reeking of insincerity and something to hide—has been a White House rarity. If the paintings from the National Portrait Gallery are to be taken at face value, then the only president to have sported a true comb-over was William Henry Harrison. Sweeping from back to front and serving only to highlight an already ample and unattractive nose, the coif did nothing to keep the ninth president of the United States warm. Refusing to wear an overcoat during his inaugural address in January 1841, Harrison contracted pneumonia and died in office a month later. He was, ironically, a member of the Whig Party.

And now came this . . .