Miss America. There they are, the brains behind this perennial parade of pulchritude once again finding a way to breathe new life into an anachronism that by rights should have been a politically incorrect corpse long ago.

The pageant lives because if there’s anything a goodly portion of the public adores more than the sight of lovely, baton-twirling, Chopin-playing, show tune-belting young women locked in mortal combat, it’s controversy. And controversy is a card the 78-year-old pageant plays exceedingly well.

First, dump Bert (Mr. Miss America) Parks. Then, give viewers a say in the outcome via call-in voting. This year, it’s the bikini.

Well, not exactly the bikini — the word apparently conjures up unwelcome images of amoral hot-tubbing jet-setters. It’s the wholesome two-piece bathing suit, just the garment to wear while expounding one’s platform for achieving world peace.

The best part about this midriff-baring breakthrough is the set of regs on suit dimensions, which resembles the U.S. tax code in both complexity and loophole potential. The width of back and shoulder straps are precisely defined, as is the allowable span of exposed skin between waistband and navel. But, in a deft move guaranteed to spark debate in living rooms across the land, rule-makers left vague the mandated coverage of the crucial regions, front-of-the-top and back-of-the-bottom. Let modesty be your guide.

Miss Maine, Rachel Binder, a singing, dancing, politically active credit to The County, is going two-piece (“I’m long-waisted”) and says her chocolate-brown macrame number is “slightly borderline” rules-wise. You go, girl.

The Miss America pageant is pure overblown corn — a Super Bowl for the girl next door — but every so often, as in the crowning of the deaf Heather Whitestone in 1994, it does something really right. If you want exploitation, look at the pre-teen pageant industry; if you want sexism, look just about anywhere else on your TV dial. Somebody has to cut ribbons, somebody has to visit hospitals for sick children. It might as well be someone with good posture and a sparkling smile. And if the nation knows she has a gold ring in her belly button, who’s hurt?