Was it wrong of Maureen Dowd to write about Michelle's shoulders?
No.
It's not a column we'd be interested in reading but we avoid Dowd's columns.
Here's Michelle's official White House portrait.
See the shoulders.
In the White world, it may or may not be a big deal. Ask any African-American about Angela Bassett, specifically about Angela in What's Love Got To Do With It and, chances are, Angela's shoulders will come up. If it's an Ike lover who believes in battering women, you'll be told that with those shoulders, Angela/Tina could've kicked Ike's ass. Those conversations continue to take place today as do other conversations about Angela's shoulders.
Michelle has huge shoulders. Freakishly huge shoulders. Joan Crawford shoulders.
She chose to bare them, she made them an issue.
She especially made them an issue because she's not about anything.
This is the woman who got endless headlines for her Vogue posing.
She does nothing. (Don't bring up her 'military families' visit -- she spent the bulk of time with the wives of officers. She gets no respect from us for that cowardly move.)
When you do nothing and you (and the press) make a huge to-do about you and a fashion magazine (and embarrassing state of affairs for any woman over the age of 25), you're begging for your looks and fashion to be critiqued.
Don't like it? Try offering something of substance. Until you do and as long as you want to be seen as a fashion maven (one who doesn't pay for her own clothes), you're begging to be critiqued.
Maureen Dowd is frequently disagreeable but she covered Michelle's shoulders and others did as well because Michelle Obama chose to make them an issue and because there's nothing of substance about Michelle as of yet. This is not a case where a woman working on serious issues is being reduced to what she wears. This is a case of a woman who's made it all about what she wears being evaluated on the terms she created.