I hate it when this happens.

There I was, minding my own business. (At least, I think fashion in the election is my business -- even if I do tend to focus on more extreme examples.) And I stumbled right into a gratuitous attempt by a journalism professor (in an article about fashion in the presidential race) to drag the French into John Edwards' famously overpriced haircut:

John Edwards, who withdrew from the race for the Democratic nomination on Wednesday, provoked an uproar with his 400 dollar haircut -- apparently not because of the cost but because of who did it.

"It was a scandal because the hairdresser was a Frenchman named Christophe," said Columbia University journalism professor, Jessica Siegel.

"French chic is not appreciated in the US", she added.

Edwards finished third -- behind Clinton and Obama -- in all but one of the primaries held so far, and finally quit the race.

Presidential wannabes are advised to go simple, and American.

Far be it from me to get in a hair war with a Columbia journalism professor, but Ms. Siegel is being neither fair nor accurate.

And isn't she supposed to be setting an example? You know, if journalists are supposed to check facts, shouldn't journalism professors be careful when they hurl cultural insinuations at friendly countries? (Or might the problem be that France has become too much of a friendly country?)

Anyway, I hate to having to be a bitchy, nit-picky blogger about this. I'm normally quite forgiving of other people's errors, but the hair stylist whose $400 haircuts got Edwards in trouble was neither French, nor was he named Christophe. He's Joseph Torrenueva, and he's been cutting hair for the stars for years:

For four decades, Joseph Torrenueva has cut the hair of Hollywood celebrities, from Marlon Brando to Bob Barker, so when a friend told him in 2003 that a presidential candidate needed grooming advice, he agreed to help.

The Beverly Hills hairstylist, a Democrat, said he hit it off with then-Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina at a meeting in Los Angeles that brought several fashion experts together to advise the candidate on his appearance. Since then, Torrenueva has cut Edwards's hair at least 16 times.

At first, the haircuts were free. But because Torrenueva often had to fly somewhere on the campaign trail to meet his client, he began charging $300 to $500 for each cut, plus the cost of airfare and hotels when he had to travel outside California.

Professor Siegel seems to have confused (or maybe conflated) Bill Clinton and John Edwards, for it was Bill Clinton who had his hair cut by Christophe:

Edwards is certainly not the first politician to face ridicule when his or her grooming habits caught the public's eye. It took a long time for President Bill Clinton to live down the haircut he received from the stylist Christophe of Beverly Hills while Air Force One was parked on an airport runway in Los Angeles. And Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) had her own minor version of the Edwards treatment after her Senate campaign spent nearly $3,000 in fees and travel for two sessions with stylist Isabelle Goetz.

It gets worse. As it turns out, even Christophe is not French, but Belgian. At least, so says this reviewer.

But can I rely on that statement?

I wanted to be sure. After all, I am correcting a professor of journalism who has stated that that "gossip columns are famously loose with the facts," and if she thinks that about gossip columns, imagine what she might think about factually loose bloggers! So, I called the the Beverly Hills Christophe Salon at the number listed on their website and asked. A woman who identified herself as Diane put me on hold and checked. Sure enough, Christophe was born in Belgium.

So, not only was it wrong to attribute Bill Clinton's haircut to John Edwards, and Christophe's national origin to Joe Torrenueva, it was even worse to implicate the French for an act committed by a Belgian at he behest of an Arkansan!

Sheesh.

If we're going to be crushed by fashionist hegemony, let's at least get the details right.