The gasps were audible when Jay Carney, the White House press secretary, strolled to the briefing room podium last Monday sporting the unthinkable, at least by Washington standards: a beard.

Within minutes, Mr. Carney’s Bushwick-inflected fashion statement prompted barbs on Twitter. “Jay Carney rocks lumberjack-chic at the year’s first press conference,” read one typical tweet, from the news site NowThis News.

Sure, conspicuous facial hair may have been “out” in Washington since Chester A. Arthur’s muttonchops, but the assembled reporters might have spared themselves their “whoas.” The beard, until recently the scruffy fashion statement of the plaid-shirt-and-craft-beer creative underclass, has lately been institutionalized, co-opted by The Man not only in the form of pinstripe-clad Beltway insiders, but by Wall Street titans, professional sports golden boys, Us Weekly cover boys and morning-show television hosts.