In a dramatic rebuke to the Congress, President George W. Bush has shaved his head completely bald.
Video of the newly hairless President was captured on a cellphone by a patron at a Tysons Corner, Virginia Applebee's and posted on the website TMZ.com.
Senior White House officials, who declined to be quoted by name because they did not wish their identities to be associated with their views, said that efforts to encourage Mr. Bush simply to ignore the congressional debate over his Iraq policy were unavailing.
At a press conference earlier in the week, Mr. Bush appeared to dismiss the nonbinding resolution against him as meaningless. But that same day, on a MySpace page whose IP address has been traced to a "K. Hughes," this entry was posted: "There's just so much you can do to help a person. I cannot convince him in ANY way to love himself. ... I cannot save him from himself, nor can I commit him to any type of treatment program against his wishes and will. I am throwing my hands up and realizing that I am helpless over another."
On the Senate floor, Sen. Lindsay Graham (R-SC) blamed Mr. Bush's self-balding to to "leftist bloggers" who "have the Democratic Party, the media and seventy percent of the American people in a brutal stranglehold."
Mr. Bush's father, George H.W. Bush, denied that Mr. Bush's action was a cry for help. "'Don't cry for me, Argentina,'" he said, through a spokesperson.
Efforts to reach Sen. Joseph Biden (D-MBNA) for a reaction were unsuccessful.