Below The Beltway

Believe it or not, there’s been a good deal of discussion in Washington, D.C. over the past several days. Not about health care reform. Not about the elections in Afghanistan. Not about al Qaeda’s new base in Pakistan and the issues regarding the security of that countries nuclear arsenal.

No, everyone’s been talking about Michelle Obama’s shorts:

And in today’s Washington Post, fashion editor Robin Givhan takes the First Lady to task for doing something that any normal American would do while on vacation:

The first lady stepped off Air Force One during the Obama family’s recent mini-vacation out West wearing a pair of moss-colored shorts. They were not the kind of knee-grazing Bermudas or pedal pushers that the fashion industry has long advocated as work-appropriate sportswear during the summer months. They were not tailored, nor were they masquerading as a skirt. Michelle Obama was wearing play shorts — the kind of casual cotton fare that a woman might choose for a family outing when her itinerary includes hiking around the rim of the Grand Canyon on a hot summer day, which is precisely what the first lady was going to do.

Obama, who joined the president and their two daughters for an excursion to the national park, looked like any other American tourist. Indeed, many sad-sack sightseers could take a few lessons from her style. The shorts fit her figure; she was not wearing a souvenir top that read: “My family went to Washington and all I got was this lousy T-shirt.” She was not sporting a fanny pack. Or wearing beaten-up rubber flip-flops. She looked fine.

But that doesn’t make the ensemble okay.

(…)

Ultimately, the first lady can’t be — nor should she be — just like everyone else. Hers is a life of responsibilities and privileges. She gets the fancy jet. She has to dress for the ride.

Unlike the president, whose entire life, down to his medical history, is available for public scrutiny, or the first children, whose lives are almost entirely private, the first lady lives in a constant tug-of-war between the private and the public. Her private family vacation might have called for sport shorts. Her very public descent from Air Force One would have been less jarring — what with two stern servicemen standing ramrod-straight and the bulletproof presidential “beast” waiting — if her attire had been more polished. Was a suit required? A fancy dress? Or any kind of dress, for that matter? Absolutely not. This is 2009, after all, not 1950. But there’s a difference between shorts that could be worn jogging and those that one might wear to a backyard barbecue.

Or at least that’s as it should be. The reality is that a good portion of the culture has become loudly vocal about how clothes don’t matter and how it’s snobbish or shallow to suggest that they do. But clothes are part of our broader aesthetic obligation to each other. That commitment pushes homeowners to mow their lawns and not be a blight to the neighborhood. It makes them think twice before painting their houses in psychedelic stripes. The desire to be aesthetically respectful means guests give consideration to what they wear to a friend’s wedding or mourners take care in how they dress for a loved one’s funeral.

What an obnoxious load of self-important crap.

I’ve got to think that Givhan was looking for a way to convince the owners of the Washington Post that her job was somehow relevant, so she came up with this “political” piece with all kinds of stuff about how the First Lady has to set an example for the rest of us poor slobs.

Bull.

Michelle Obama is a human being no different from you or me. She wasn’t elected to anything. She isn’t even claiming to be anything other than the mother of her children right now, which is admirable in a way. If she wants to wear a pair of shorts on a trip to Arizona — where, by the way, temperatures have been near 100 for the better part of a week — let her wear a damn pair of shorts.

We have many more important things to worry about than what the wife of the President wears.