February 02, 2006 09:00 AM UTC

Beauprez in Trouble for Playing Dress-Up

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• by: Colorado Pols

Rep. Bob Beauprez is getting a lot of grief from military veterans and liberal blogs (here, here, here and here, among others) for this picture of him wearing some sort of military garb:

The criticism comes from the fact that Beauprez apparently received three student deferments yet still wore this outfit on the stump. It’s a valid argument, though one we aren’t going to get into here. What does confuse us, however, is why he would have pulled himself into this outfit to begin with. Surely this was going to turn out poorly on the PR side once a Beauprez opponent got hold of it. Why not dress him up in a Chicken suit for his next appearance?

President Bush was roundly criticized for flying onto an aircraft carrier and announcing victory in Iraq while wearing a flight suit, but at least Bush had served in the Air National Guard, or something like that. Putting Beauprez in this position to get darts thrown at his picture from all angles was definitely not a good idea.