MAUREEN DOWD


WASHINGTON

Journalists are never supposed to start a piece with a scene in a taxi because it signals either laziness about gathering facts or a tendency to embroider facts.

Nonetheless, I’m going to. The Times columnist David Brooks and I were sharing a cab to the British Embassy the other day to meet with Gordon Brown.

The dour prime minister was a blithe spirit despite a mutinous British press corps that was complaining about the president snubbing the prime minister. First, President Obama sent back the bust of Winston Churchill that Tony Blair lent to President Bush; then the White House downgraded the“special relationship”to a“special partnership.”The Rose Garden press conference where Mr.Brown was going to stand“podium-to-podium with the Messiah,”as one British scribe dryly put it, was demoted to a“press availability”in the Oval Office.

Then the president offered a lame present of DVDs - including“Psycho” - in return for the prime minister’s cool gift of a pen holder made from the wood of the Victorian antislave vessel H.M.S.Gannet. Critics wondered if the brusqueness was because, as Mr.Obama wrote in“Dreams From My Father,”his grandfather was beaten by British colonial troops in Kenya. The press also conjured paranoia that the president’s“Lady MacBeth”had been behind the chilly treatment because, as James Delingpole snipped in a Telegraph blog,“Her broad-brush view of history associates Brits with the wicked white global hegemony responsible for the slave trade.”

The British tabloids complained that, while Sarah Brown gave the Obama girls Top Shop dresses and necklaces, a“solipsistic”Michelle merely gave the Brown boys models of Marine One.

As blue chip stocks turn into penny stocks, Wall Street seems less like a symbol of America’s macho capitalism and more like that famous Jane Austen character Mrs.Bennet, who was always anxious about getting richer and her “poor nerves.”The president tried to urge Americans to be more resolute and buy stocks. In a Times interview on March 6, he further advised us not to “suddenly stuff money”in our mattresses.

Wall Street is weak and jittery, rejecting the vague and laconic courtship of Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner.G.M. is verging on bankruptcy, and A.I.G. should be. Americans are confused and fretful. President Obama admitted in his Times interview that the United States is not winning the war in Afghanistan, even as he denied - and then called back 90 minutes later to really deny - that he’s a socialist.

Let’s face it: The only bracing symbol of American strength right now is the image of Michelle Obama’s sculpted biceps. Her husband urges bold action, but it is Michelle who looks as though she could easily wind up and punch out Rush Limbaugh, Bernie Madoff and all the corporate creeps who ripped off America.

In the taxi, when I asked David Brooks about her amazing arms, he indicated it was time for her to cover up.“She’s made her point,”he said.“Now she should put away Thunder and Lightning.”

I’d seen the plaint echoed elsewhere.“Someone should tell Michelle to mix up her wardrobe and cover up from time to time,”Sandra McElwaine wrote recently on the news blog The Daily Beast.

Washington is a place where people have always been suspect of style and overt sexuality. Too much preening signals that you’re not up late studying cap-and-trade agreements.

David was not smitten by the Vneck, sleeveless eggplant dress Michelle wore at her husband’s address to Congress - the one that caused one Republican congressman to whisper to another,“Babe.”

He said the policy crowd here would consider the dress ostentatious.“Washington is sensually avoidant. The wonks here like brains. She should not be known for her physical presence, for one body part.”

David brought up the Obamas’ obsession with their workouts. “Sometimes I think half the reason Obama ran for president is so Michelle would have a platform to show off her biceps.”During the campaign, there was talk in the Obama ranks that Michelle should stop wearing sleeveless dresses, because her muscles, combined with her potent personality, made her daunting.

She ignored that talk, thank heavens. I love the designer-to-J.Crew glamour. Combined with her workaday visits to soup kitchens, inner-city schools and meetings with military families, Michelle’s flair is our depression’s answer to Ginger Rogers gliding around in feathers and lame.

Her arms, and her complete confidence in her skin, are a reminder that Americans can do anything if they put their minds to it. Unlike Hillary, who chafed at the loathed job of first lady, and Laura, who for long stretches disappeared into the helpmate role, Michelle has soared every day, expanding the job to show us what can be accomplished by a generous spirit, a confident nature and a well-disciplined body.

I also have no doubt she can talk capand- trade with ease and panache.