D.C.Pundit Problems

 I’m doing my best here:

What We Lose When We Loosen Dress Codes Allowing senators to wear what they please on the Senate floor may seem like liberation, but abandoning the dress code could wind up symbolizing the failure to

Since I can’t embed the  xweets, I have to copy them; sort of. This method has its drawbacks.

“As little as I have loved Republicans the past few years, coinciding with the rise of our own little autocrat, at least Donald Trump knows how to dress,” @kathleenparker writes.

These are from Doug J Balloon, but they are real, not parody.

I remember “dress codes” from high school. We didn’t have much of one by then: everyone was wearing blue jeans and sneakers and shirts: male and female alike. Every male’s head had fairly short hair, though some of us, having relatively recently escaped burr haircuts and crew cuts (ask me about the color, texture, and near impossibility to wash out, of Butch Hair Wax, a/k/a “greasy kid’s stuff in Brylcreem ads. Oh, go ask your grandpa! Punk kids!), thought we had “long hair “ because it touched our ears. (As age makes my ears more and more resemble Dumbo’s, I reconsider my tonsorial choices.). Eventually, in college, I had “long hair.” Given my hair’s nature, it came closer to helmet hair than the classic hippie look. I plan to burn all those pictures before I die.). 

We had one student who, in high school, could grow a full beard, and also wore his hair down to his shoulders. He wore t-shirts, blue jeans, and sandals. Exclusively. There were rumors about how he got away with it (most centering in a “note from his doctor.) To this day I have no idea how he managed it.

He even got a two page spread in the yearbook as “Mr. Robert E.Lee” (it was the name the school, and obviously the high honor for seniors). The award traditionally went to a couple: “Mr. and Miss (wrong as it is, I want to say “Mrs.” I’m too lazy to correct my memory by finding those yearbooks.). That year the female half was the half of a couple whose boyfriend expected the award alongside his sweetie. He was a confirmed redneck: he wore cowboy boots, cowboy hat, big shiny belt buckle; and had a ring in his back pocket from the ubiquitous Skoal can.

Usually the couple was photographed together. The girl refused to be photographed with Mr. Hippie, and the boyfriend threatened to pound him to s pulp if he saw any pictures of them together. The boyfriend was built like a fire plug and looked like he wrestled bulls to the ground in his spare time.

I still love the sense of humor the student body showed in electing those two to that honor.

But the point is, we had teachers insist clothes made the student and sloppy dress meant sloppy minds. Even then we knew that was bullshit. I wore jeans through high school, college, and graduate school and law school. I wore suits daily (between school stints) for years, giving it up except for Sunday worship and occasions when I was officially a pastor, until I took up teaching again. I’ve been wearing jeans since, and have a suit only for funerals and weddings (when I’m officiating, at the latter). My dress code is button down shirts and jeans and, in summer, Topsiders or boots, depending.

I used to despair at the rise of “casual wear” in adults. Now I consider suits ridiculous, especially ties. WTF?🤬 It’s a ridiculous expense, aside from the suit itself. Is there really an argument for either that doesn’t involve “we’ve always done it this way!” in some variation or another?

And especially in matters of the conduct of the U.S. Senate, does it really matter how they dress on the Senate floor? Or does it matter more what they do there?

Ted Cruz can take the chamber floor dressed in a tuxedo; he’s still a braying ass.

Unless there’s some roving band of rednecks looking to beat up Sen. Fetterman for not wearing a tie in the Senate, I don’t see the problem here. Except now I think the handwringing D.C. pundits are the rednecks in this analogy…