I love Maria Shriver. She is genuine and smart and one of the great Kennedys — I wish she could or would take her late Uncle Ted’s Senate seat. I watched her all weekend and into Monday, hawking her new study, "The Shriver Report: A Woman’s Nation Changes Everything." She is impressive. And the study is vital reading. But … her hair.

Kill me for the shallow Mr. W. I am. I know she said wonderful and important things about women in the workplace. Yet, despite her eloquence, I could not stop gazing at, contemplating her auburn mane. It is enormous. It’s Raquel Welch’s old hair on steroids. It has a life of its own. And quite a healthy, vigorous life, if one assumes — and I do — that it’s all Maria, and there are no nasty Britney-like extensions woven in. Perhaps because the always-slim Maria is now even thinner, her hair just looks more overwhelming. I’d advise trimming it, or battening it down somehow, but over the years that forest of follicles has become something of a trademark. Would we even know who Maria Shriver was if she sported a simple pageboy or a modest flip? Anyway, those majestic cheekbones and that firm iron jawline need a backdrop. It doesn’t work, really. But it does. You know what I mean.

To be perfectly honest, Mr. wOw is rapidly balding, and holding on to what’s left in a most undignified way. To look at a full head of hair is both a torment and a nostalgic pleasure. Maria Shriver supplies agony and ecstasy.

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