Yeah, but does he look presidential?

"There's no way they can run this Lincoln dude," one can hear the media pundit telling a colleague in 1860. "Yes, the background story's good, with the rail-splitting and the log cabin and all, but look at that beard without the mustache. Weird. And that stovepipe hat—so 1850s." Thankfully, no one cared, writes historian Andrew Roberts.

Andrew Jackson's long wavy hair, George Washington's ill-fitting hippo-ivory dentures and the distorted smile it gave him, Woodrow Wilson's tombstone-like teeth and lack of vision in his left eye, Ulysses Grant's grizzly little beard—all might have proven fatal at the polls if earlier ages had been as morally stunted, intellectually limited and looks-obsessed as ours. ... and we're saddled with commentary that not only ignores the issues but makes the jury of "American Idol" seem kind.

Roberts is understandably frustrated. Frankly, I hoisted the white flag on this point long ago, taking poet Friedrich Schiller's axiom to heart: "Against stupidity the very gods themselves contend in vain." But I feel Roberts' pain. I agree that "there can be nothing more moronic" than choosing a president on the basis of whether he or she could handsomely play one on TV. I'm also sympathetic to his final line: "Any country that selects its leaders on such a basis deserves everything it gets." Good and hard, as H.L. Mencken would doubtless add. Though I hope the day never comes, it may take electing a true "American Idol" character (think Palin) to make America come to her senses. The trouble is that the nation might not survive the epic whirlwind their Hollywood-gorgeous (but empty-suited) president would reap.