February 14, 2011 11:53 am ET by Simon Maloy 
 
 First Lady Michelle Obama is in the midst of a nationwide anti-obesity campaign aimed at shrinking America's collectively expanding waistline. The conservative media are striking back against Mrs. Obama's message of fitness and nutrition by decrying what they see as government intrusion into our pantries. 
 
 At least, that's what they're doing when they're not calling Michelle Obama fat. 
 
 Rush Limbaugh's long been laying the groundwork for this sexist attack, using stories about the First Lady's nutrition programs to call the fitness-fanatic Mrs. Obama "Michelle, My Butt." (The jab's lack of sense it exceeded only by its lack of self-awareness.) 
 
 Yesterday, the resident cartoonists at Andrew Breitbart's BigGovernment.com posted this offering: 
 
 If there's a "joke" in there, I'm missing it. Notably, the version of the cartoon online now differs slightly -- but significantly -- from the version that showed up in my RSS reader, in which the First Lady demands: "Shut up and pass the lard!" 
 
 It's been a long time since I've expected anything approaching comity from the conservative media, but this is the sort of stuff most of us left at the grade school playground. ||||| While most gathered at CPAC this past weekend were busy gobbling up buffet-sized servings of Republican rage, one outsized commentator was left eating a slice of humble pie. 
 
 Former USDA official Shirley Sherrod has filed a lawsuit against conservative firebrand and web entrepreneur Andrew Breitbart. The suit stems from the notorious video Breitbart posted online last year, showing an out-of-context excerpt from a speech Sherrod gave to the NAACP Freedom Fund in March 2010. The clip suggested she had used her position at the Department of Agriculture to discriminate against white farmers. The media devoured the Breitbart's version of story so voraciously that the NAACP denounced Sherrod and the Obama administration fired her. The charge was, in fact, entirely untrue. 
 
 Sherrod argues in the lawsuit that the clip "damaged her reputation and prevented her from continuing her work." Breitbart, meanwhile, denounced the suit, saying he "categorically rejects the transparent effort to chill his constitutionally protected free speech." 
 
 Breitbart's media machine is doing its best to reframe Sherrod's complaint in the most favorable terms possible. One of his websites, BigGovernment.com, posted an article, titled "New Media Entrepreneur declares that his voice will not be suppressed," shortly after Breitbart was served. The piece referred to the complaint as the "Pigford Lawsuit" -- a nod to Breitbart's newest "obsession" and would-be vehicle for dragging Sherrod's name through the mud. Not surprisingly, the meme does not appear to have caught on. 
 
 Breitbart's full statement: ||||| Andrew Breitbart is at CPAC again this year and his big issue is Pigford, a little-known legal settlement between the federal government and black farmers that Breitbart claims is rife with fraud. 
 
 Breitbart describes Pigford as his "obsession." When I caught up with him this morning and asked about Egypt -- specifically the claims by some of Breitbart's writers that the protests there mark the beginning of an Islamic caliphate -- he said he wasn't following the issue because he's been all Pigford, all the time, for months. (Watch my interview below.) 
 
 He's trying his best to force the alleged Pigford fraud into the mainstream media and use it to attack both the Obama administration and Shirley Sherrod, the obscure U.S. Department of Agriculture official who was made famous after she was attacked by Breitbart over the summer. (That "scandal" fell utterly apart in a matter of days, though not before the Obama administration had fired Sherrod.) 
 
 So what is Pigford? 
 
 It was originally a class action lawsuit against the government filed in the mid-1990s by a group of black farmers. The Department of Agriculture had discriminated against black farmers for many years in deciding how loans and grants were distributed. The government settled, and some farmers got a payout. But it subsequently emerged that many eligible black farmers had failed to take advantage of the settlement. So in December 2010, Congress appropriated another $1.25 billion to pay Pigford claims. It passed with bipartisan support, by unanimous consent in the Senate and a large majority in the House. (For a more in-depth history of Pigford, see this TPM piece.) 
 
 But some conservatives, notably Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa, have blasted Pigford as "slavery reparations" in disguise. He, like Breitbart, has alleged widespread fraud. They have argued that Pigford is an unwarranted payout to a Democratic constituency. Breitbart held a press conference here at CPAC featuring King, Rep. Michele Bachmann, and Eddie Slaughter, a black farmer who is angry because he did not get a Pigford payout that he believes was due to him. 
 
 How does Sherrod come into the story? She and her husband were the recipients of $13 million from the first Pigford settlement. Breitbart has since implied that Sherrod had some role in the alleged mismanagement of the program at the Department of Agriculture. Critics, like Media Matters, have argued that Breitbart is merely trying to salvage his reputation after the failed attack on Sherrod over the summer. 
 
 I talked to Breitbart, who made a point of having Slaughter, the farmer, present for the interview. Our conversation went considerably more smoothly than Breitbart's angry encounter with Salon at last year's CPAC. I asked him for his take on Pigford and challenged him to answer those who doubt credibility in the wake of the Sherrod fiasco. 
 
 Watch the interview:
– Andrew Breitbart, fresh off the news of Shirley Sherrod's lawsuit against him, has gotten himself embroiled in another controversy. His Big Government website lashed out at Michelle Obama's anti-obesity campaign ... by basically calling her fat. A cartoon strip on the website shows an overweight Obama eating a huge pile of hamburgers while talking to her big-eared husband about the campaign, Salon reports. The punch line—"Shut up and pass the bacon!"—was originally "Shut up and pass the lard!" Media Matters notes. Click to see the cartoon.