The fact that Dowd likes Michelle Obama’s arms doesn’t mean she’s “on my side.” My side is the one that thinks Michelle Obama’s arms—unlike, say, her remarkable intelligence, her accomplishments, or her ongoing adaptation to the strange, ever-shifting role of First Lady—aren’t worth discussing.

Dowd’s side? That’s the one comparing Michelle Obama to Ginger Rogers and describing bare arms as a display of “overt sexuality”:

Let’s face it: The only bracing symbol of American strength right now is the image of Michelle Obama’s sculpted biceps. Her husband urges bold action, but it is Michelle who looks as though she could easily wind up and punch out Rush Limbaugh, Bernie Madoff and all the corporate creeps who ripped off America.

In the taxi, when I asked David Brooks about her amazing arms, he indicated it was time for her to cover up. “She’s made her point,” he said. “Now she should put away Thunder and Lightning.”

I’d seen the plaint echoed elsewhere. “Someone should tell Michelle to mix up her wardrobe and cover up from time to time,” Sandra McElwaine wrote last week on The Daily Beast.

Washington is a place where people have always been suspect of style and overt sexuality. Too much preening signals that you’re not up late studying cap-and-trade agreements.

David was not smitten by the V-neck, sleeveless eggplant dress Michelle wore at her husband’s address to Congress — the one that caused one Republican congressman to whisper to another, “Babe.”

He said the policy crowd here would consider the dress ostentatious. “Washington is sensually avoidant. The wonks here like brains. She should not be known for her physical presence, for one body part.” David brought up the Obamas’ obsession with their workouts. “Sometimes I think half the reason Obama ran for president is so Michelle would have a platform to show off her biceps.”

During the campaign, there was talk in the Obama ranks that Michelle should stop wearing sleeveless dresses, because her muscles, combined with her potent personality, made her daunting.

She ignored that talk, thank heavens. I love the designer-to-J. Crew glamour. Combined with her workaday visits to soup kitchens, inner-city schools and meetings with military families, Michelle’s flair is our depression’s answer to Ginger Rogers gliding around in feathers and lamé.

38 replies on “Even Longer Maureen Dowd”

  1. michelle should do the opposite of whatever david brooks thinks. so should the entire planet. fuck david brooks.

    modo is a pot stirrer. that’s her only trick.

    besides, who gets a boner from bare arms? my high school orchestra teacher always wore sleeveless turtlenecks – i was able to get through class without tumescence.

  3. “Overt sexuality” is Dowd’s stock in trade. She is a repressed 50s-era Catholic who thinks all Democratic men are gay (except Bill Clinton, of course). She called Michelle’s husband “Obambi,” and “legally Blonde” and “beanpole guy” among other insults. She won a freaking Pulitzer Prize for writing about Monica Lewinsky. She is the ultimate symbol of what’s wrong with upper-echelon “journalism” today.

  4. So finally The Stranger and the New York Times fall arm in arm in the crusade for America’s least interesting news stories. YEAH SEATTLE. No more inferiority complex.

  5. After Hillary’s arm waddle scandal, now this. Is there a chart somewhere with arm elasticity scale vs. likeability so I can easily rate all the lady politicians’ relative worth with naught but a glance at their biceps?

  6. If Maureen Dowd is so fucking terrible, how come you all have decided to reprint her goddamn column THREE FUCKING TIMES in Slog today?

  7. Dowd is so peculiarly awful she gives rise to her own contradiction.

    What makes her awful is that she fixates on some gendered feature of a political personality–a strong woman with bare arms, oh my–and then psychoanalyzes it in a way that reveals more about her own needs and insecurities than politics. And therein lies the rub: to attempt to understand Dowd it is necessary to resort to the same armchair pop psychology that she uses and that makes her awful.

    I only ever feel worse after reading something she has written. Either because I think about the merits of what she wrote, or because I try to understand the why she wanted to publish that crap.

  8. Fnarf @6 FTW — no one would otherwise have any idea what Maureen Dowds or David Brook were saying, nor that they existed to begin with, had you not pointed them out and assigned them some importance

  10. You’re writing your opinion that an opinion piece should not be able to express an opinion. In your opinion.

    I hope you put on your goggles before you went off the deep-end.

  11. If you stacked up all the David Brooks and Maureen Dowd articles on top of each other and set them afire, not much would happen.

    Other than more global warming, mind you.

  13. Sweet lord. That’s the message you took away, Erica? Really? Gah. I guess I can sort of see your point, but it seems a bit “over-eager women’s studies major” to me. Whatevs.

    Blessings.

  14. In all honesty I can’t even say I noticed Mrs. Mr. President had arms. I assumed they were there, but couldn’t describe them. C’mon, aren’t there more interesting things to obsess over Maureen? I have to agree with Erica.

  21. Um, how you dress IS one of the main performance criteria of First Ladying. She is in a position in the limelight due to who she married, not by being elected or employed for her intelligence or accomplishments.

  25. Women’s Studies steers women away from useful degrees in math and sciences, and routes them to the social, intellectual, and economic margins.

  26. That article makes me want to bang my head against a wall. Actually, I think it makes me want to bang Maureen Dowd’s head against a wall. Why on earth would you care enough about Michelle’s arms to write an OpEd piece in the New York Times about them. Gah. Can you please stop making women look catty and retarded for two minutes, Maureen Dowd? Please?

  27. I was almost more disturbed by the terrible, terrible writing of that piece than I was by the content.

    What will happen when Dowd finally gives up the ghost of her Carrie Bradshaw life? I hope she starts focusing on structured arcs and relevance in her writing instead of continuing to try to convince people that her headshot from eons ago is still accurate. Maybe then she’ll be worth reading.

  28. And now back to Slog’s SEXY SEATTLE contest on Flickr.

    Come on, People of Seattle, show us your overt sexuality. Your remarkable intelligence, accomplishments, and creativity aren’t worth discussing.

    Just look hot.

  32. Thanks, Grammar Nazi. The correctly spelled “wattle” somehow makes the term even worse. And I thought “Lady Politicians” was the turn of phrase that would cause offense…

  34. Maureen Dowd admired Michelle because “Her arms, and her complete confidence in her skin, are a reminder that Americans can do anything if they put their minds to it.”

    And “Can do” reminds me of Rosie The Riveter.

  36. So, not going to address the plagiarism, Dan?

    Salon: “This, folks, is the top-notch content the Times wanted readers to pay for.”

    ECB: “And that, ladies and gentlemen, is the kind of scintillating content the New York Times wanted to make you pay for.”

  37. @36: I’m sure it was an accident and Erica didn’t intend to BLANTANTLY STEAL from another source.

    This is the journalism we’re going to get when the newspapers die. Or not going to get because there won’t be anyone left to steal from.

    Yay blogs!

  38. @25: Yeah, because there’s absolutely no way women can choose to take maths or sciences over women’s studies. It has “women” in the name, for Christ’s sake. It *compels.*

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