Disgraceful bias at play

She’d hate me for saying this. But Michelle Obama has something in common with Michele Bachmann. And Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Sarah Palin, too.

This great socially and politically liberal society — where, we’re told, anyone, regardless of bank account or breeding, can grow up to live in the White House — is afflicted with a nasty Michelle Obama fetish.

From the Beltway to Honolulu, obsessed folks are unable to judge our highly educated, exceedingly strong and, yes, fashion-forward first lady on the content of her character or the size of her cranium.

It’s a woman thing.

A new book, “The Obamas,” describes Mrs. O as a polarizing figure, meddling and clashing like a banshee with White House insiders, and generally flexing muscles in arms that have been derided in the media as excessively “toned.”

This led Michelle to fire back at critics who see her as “some angry black woman.” She could have substituted the word “hysterical” — a term that’s been wielded against women from time immemorial.

And this is where I take issue with some of my fellow conservatives. Those who attempted to bring down Hillary Clinton not with ideas, but with that old frat-house trope — comparing her to a female dog. Hypocritical liberals reduced tax lawyer Bachmann to a “bubblehead,” and called Sarah Palin a “MILF.” Translate that one yourself.

All are pathologically unable to disentangle their political and philosophical differences with the lady from Chicago, to separate matters of ideological disagreement from their own knee-jerk sexism. I used to think misogyny from the left was the last permissible form of bigotry.

I was half-right.

Here is an excerpt from a right-leaning Townhall.com essay penned by former TV writer Burt Prelusky in 2009:

“Take Michelle Obama . . . please. Every time I turn around, there she is on a magazine cover. Now, normally, like the Mafia, I lay off the spouses, but inasmuch as this particular spouse attended the same racist church as her hubby for 20 years, I’ll make an exception in her case. . .

Then he destroys his argument with this: “The burning question in my circle is: If the First Family gets a female dog, will she be the First Bitch or will she have to settle for second?”

Even lefty Bill Maher displayed a faux Drudge Report headline on HBO in 2009 that contained a picture of Mrs. Obama working on plants with a long and pointy tool.

“First Lady: Hoein’ in the Garden” said the false headline. Get it? Don Imus was fired by CBS radio for joking about the “nappy-headed hos” of Rutgers basketball. But this was among friends.