Speechless!

I am speechless that a whole article is dedicated to a lady’s ass.

Where are the feminists that abhor beauty pageants?

I guess that my words in this site will be lost in the wind like a preacher preaching sexual abstinence in a whore house.

Is the business of this magazine to advance the most basic animal instincts of mankind?

No, diane, you are NOT the only person to read this article with a grin on her face. I grinned too! This is a very funny article! The responses illustrate how rabidly we've developed an aversion to discussing anything having to do with the human body. Rather than being titillating or gratuitous, this article evoked only joy in this woman! The butt may not be a major national topic of importance, but this article cheered my soul. Thanks! (BTW, my name is also Diane, so maybe it's a "diane thing") ;-D

OMG! This attitude is so sexist and racist and immature that I couldn't even finish the article. But I've read enough to know this writer has singlehandedly returned women and black women especially to the 1950s, if not the 1850s. I only hope most African-American women are more sophisticated and think more of themselves than Ms Kaplan appears to think of herself, let alone the next First Lady. This article belongs in "Hustler."

If I recall, there has already been a first lady that gad "back". I am pretty sure that Brabara Bush had a lot of Junk in the trunk.

THIS story screams class!

Geez, slow news day?

And here I was all pleased that I was wrong, wrong that Salon would probably sink to some dumb, pseudo-feminist story about Michelle's body.

I figured, okay, they haven't written about it yet, so they're going to control their base impulse to do what I know darn well they're dying to do and just not do it.

But you did it anyway.

So predictable, and so irritating.

I don't know...I don't find this article THAT offensive, because I do beleive the writer was attempting, in you go girl kind of way, to explain why she is so excited about having a black female in the white house. As the black daughter, however, of a black mom who is a proud member of the Noassatall Tribe, though, I do however find the stereotyping nature of her prose a little off putting. I have a booty, but sorry, I don't neccessarily identify with Michelle physically because she's a giant. Seriously, she's like a foot taller than I am. I don't identify with her at all so much as I admire her AND her husband, for being an intelligent, classy, and average looking black woman. (well, except for being a giant.)

I do find all of the hysterical responses (this is so offensive to all black people, et all) funnier than the article, though. I especially love the, if a white person wrote this they would be lynched, comments. Maybe thats why this should have been on some blog in the black-o-sphere rather and the comments would focus specifically on the appropriateness of commenting on first lady's lady humps and NOT on whether it is racist to do so.

As if Alex Koppleman weren't bad enough, for the sham he's made of the once stellar "War Room," we now get Erin Aubry Kaplan discoursing on Michelle Obama's derriere.

Sorry, Joan, but that's it for me. I've just replaced Salon with the Huffington Post on my Bookmarks bar. And when it comes time to renew my Salon subscription, I will happily let it expire.

I don’t recall any media references to JackieO’s physical attributes as “typical white characteristics.” I don’t remember the media claiming that JackieO was “looking professional and provocative in a distinctly white way.” She was always realistically recognized by the media as having her own uniquely individual identity and style, which anyone of any color could imitate or ignore. “Butt,” apparently the media has decided that poor MichelleO must be reduced to a “blacks-only” representative, whether she hoped to use her new position to showcase an intelligent, civilized standard for all colors of Americans or not. Obama once wrote that “only whites are allowed to be individuals;” looks like Salon is determined to keep it that way.

This article is written as though people can somehow control the proportionate sizes of their booties. Michelle Obama could no more control the size of her booty than Jackie O. could control her lack of one. (And it's not an either-or situation; I think that Jackie and Michelle were/are both beautiful.) Why not write about something that Mrs. Obama actually WORKED to achieve - like her Princeton degree, her law degree, or her seemingly well adjusted daughters?

Normally I don't react so strongly to poor journalism (it's everywhere these days, so one had better get used to it) - but this article was so meaningless and such a gigantic a waste of brain space that I won't be reading Salon anymore.

June, Did you see the recent photos of Condi Rice from Glamour's Women of the Year ceremony? She looked incredible.

Penny vomited:

A woman that LOOKS like a woman!

Tell me, what are women "supposed" to look like? To quote many of the misogynists here, "you must be ugly," if you feel the need to project your own inadequacies upon all women.

Well - I'm not mortally offended like some.

I even get that the author is trying to express a certain joy in the piece.

But I can't help wondering how Michelle Obama would feel on reading someone essentially saying she has a fat arse in a supposedly serious magazine.

I'm also a little concerned about how the more than usually virulent right wing could re-frame a piece like this to pander to the very stereotypes that the author herself, I'm sure, would hate to see applied to an intelligent, attractive and accomplished woman such as Michelle O.

The Obama's have a huge huge task ahead of them and on top of that will probably encounter obstacles no previous president ever has - those of good will should be thinking very carefully about whether their voices are going to help or hinder.

I also seem to remember reading, possibly even here, that the culture of 'large booty' is actually encouraging women to develop a physique that is actually bad for their health (not that we men would ever do that!!).