The XX Factor: What women really think.

Michelle the Mall Rat

Can we talk about Caitlin Flanagan's underminer-y commentary on Michelle Obama's hostessing? Flanagan contributed a short essay to New York Magazine's cover story package on Mrs. O, and the entire thing is a litany of backhanded compliments:

Michelle Obama cuts a pretty figure in her big-and-tall gal ready-to-wear, and she has Joe Kennedy’s understanding of the power of family photographs to advance a political career. Like Hillary she lacks taste; her consumer preferences seem to have been rendered into being by the Mall at Short Hills. But ours is not the moment for taste. Or, for that matter, for a Nancy Reagan/Candy Spelling hyperattention to “gifting.”

Is Flanagan just a clear-eyed Obama observer, ignoring the swoons over Michelle's style and telling it like it is? Or is she just being contrarian to get our attention?