Why all the fuss over a first lady's bare arms?

Quoted via AP:

If nothing else, the hullabaloo over Michelle Obama's occasionally sleeveless attire, which reached a fever pitch this month, has unleashed a torrent of clever puns from headline writers — the better to distract us from that economic news we'd rather not be hearing.

Never before, surely, has a set of bare arms launched so much discussion than in the weeks since Mrs. Obama appeared sleeveless at her husband's speech to Congress in chilly February. Certainly not in equally chilly January 1963, when Jacqueline Kennedy wore one of her many sleeveless outfits to her own husband's State of the Union address.

Why, then, so much attention to Michelle Obama's well-toned biceps — well, and triceps and delts — 46 years later? Just about everyone in the worlds of fashion, media, politics and fitness has a theory on this pressing question for the body politic. more