Beards deserve a chance

It was common for America’s leading politicians to have generous outcroppings of facial hair in the 19th century, whether it was the mutton chops that graced the visage of John Quincy Adams, or the sturdy, flowing beards Adams successors such as Rutherford B. Hayes, James Garfield and Benjamin Harrison sported.
Sometime after the William Howard Taft administration, however, facial hair largely fell out of fashion, at least for politicians operating at America’s upper echelons. The assumption seemed to be facial hair made its wearers seem somehow scruffy or suspect.
The election last year of the hirsute Tom Wolf as Pennsylvania’s governor represented something of a breakthrough. No, not on a level of an African-American with the name Barack Obama becoming president, but Wolf did show the bearded need not grab a razor before seeking higher office.
And now freshly minted Speaker of the House Paul Ryan has a beard. It looks fine to us. But the reaction to it in some quarters shows just how far beards have to go before some voters can accept them.
One commenter on a conservative website wondered, “Is that beard part of Ryan’s conversion to Islam?” Another said, “Looking at that scruff on his face makes me wonder if he too is getting into bed with the Muslim Brotherhood …” And a third: “Tidy little sprouting Islamic beard. Doesn’t he think these grooming things through?”
For goodness sakes. Sometimes, a beard is just a beard. The fate of the nation does not hinge upon it.
Do these folks also believe the jolly, bearded elf who has an address at the North Pole is in cahoots with ISIS?