Last year, when young conservatives gathered in Washington, D.C., for the annual conclave known as the Conservative Political Action Conference, various bloggers looked upon the youth in their movement and despaired at the way they'd chosen to dress themselves for the big event. Red State's Erick Erickson took to his blog to decry "the young men at CPAC this year who just seemingly refuse to grow up or act their age," urging them to stop treating the gathering "like spring break." Fellow conservative blogger Melissa Clouthier sized up the ladies of CPAC, and found them similarly wanting: "Women will be future leaders, too, and I was dismayed to see how many of them either looked frumpish or like two-bit whores."
Harsh! But maybe this year will be different. Flash forward to today, and we have Dave Weigel leading us to a Pinterest page that seeks to pre-emptively keep CPAC fashions in line:
Source: Uploaded by user via Blog on Pinterest
It's sort of hard to argue with this. When actors are sent to auditions, they maybe forego wearing suit and tie, but overall this is the dress code: professional accoutrements, fitted to move and facilitate a long day of tromping around a conference center.
Of course, for young college-aged political enthusiasts, the fitted dress may not be the way to go -- no sense in looking matronly until you have to serve on the Senate Judiciary Committee, after all! That said, I really want to praise the "pinner" of this Pinterest page, Adrienne Royer, for taking a firm stand against some styles. "Dressy shorts" are an abomination that diminish the entire human race, and they should be set alight at every opportunity. Surely we can find bipartisan support for this.
And the second-greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was the romper. Sorry, but this is true.
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