Did you wait too long to get that boob lift, and now your stock portfolio is in the gutter? Well, Richard Nicoll’s got just the thing for a recessionista like you: Face garters hold up your tits with in a pinch! Now, I understand face garters might be obvious, not to mention a touch uncomfortable. But nothing screams, “stone broke,” like a set of saggy sadbags.

If you say it enough times in print, it becomes true. Right? As the worldwide obsession with Michelle Obama’s fashion choices shifted to her toned arms last week, Andre Leon Talley looked bound and determined to convince everyone that Michelle Obama is skinny like the rest of the women who appear in Vogue (political wives most certainly included, as evidenced by this irrelevant-but-for-Vogue line from the story about Silda Spitzer’s cautious re-emergence: “[Dana] Buchman has tried to dress Silda but admits her friend is too slim for the clothes in her collection.” You can practically feel the magazine’s sense of relief).

Now, don’t get me wrong. I think Mrs. Obama’s got a bumpin’ bod — those sculpted shoulders are the subject of intense admiration for good reason. And “long” and “athletic” are certainly accurate adjectives for her physique. But “lean”and “lithe”? No wonder our new First Lady was hesitant to appear in the magazine. Girlfriend’s got serious booty, and I bet her husband loves it. More important, American women love the booty too. Those curves serve as yet another indication that Mrs. Obama is real — not an out-of-touch social x-ray who starves and trains 24/7 — and gives battered American broads something with which to identify. Remember HRC’s much-maligned big booty as feminist rallying point? The difference is that Michelle Obama not only knows how to flatter that womanly load, she also wields it like a power tool. And that confidence is something that Vogue, in making the First Lady the face of its “Power Issue,” should have enthusiastically grabbed with both hands, and gone, “Yes! All salute das First boot!”