"Michelle Obama's posterior again the subject of a public rant."

That's an actual headline at The Washington Post. The article informs us of an incident involving something that was said by a previously unfamous high school football coach. The erstwhile nonentity, Bob Grisham, said:

"Fat butt Michelle Obama.... Look at her. She looks like she weighs 185 or 190. She’s overweight."

For his sins, Grisham was suspended from his job, but that's clearly not enough punishment. He must be further humiliated. As if this is enforcing good taste in talking about the First Lady! The Washington Post published an article about her ass! Halfway through it gets to the provocative question:

But what is it with Michelle Obama’s critics and the fixation with her derriere?

Does using words like "posterior" and "derriere" make this okay? The Washington Post asked the question — I'll put it in plain English: Why are so many people talking about Michelle Obama's ass?

Now, the obvious answer would seem to be that she's made childhood obesity her issue, so that's somehow asking for comment on the subject of whether she herself is at all fat. (I disagree with that sort of critique, by the way. She's made the subject obesity and how it affects health, not mere fatness and how it affects beauty. For her issue, it's fine that she doesn't come across as thin. She looks robust and not health-impaired. If she looked thin, people would say she's pushing vanity-based dieting and insufficiently concerned with the scourge of anorexia.)

The WaPo article ignores that obvious answer but does not eschew obviousness. It goes racial.

The first lady’s critics “are reacting to the culture in which they’ve grown up or they are using it as a code to racialize Michelle Obama and remind people that she’s black,” says Andra Gillespie, an associate professor of political science at Emory University.