On the Weight of the Nation website, the CDC calls its new hatefest “an unprecedented public health campaign.” Really? Let me list on my pudgy fingers a few of the more obvious public health campaigns attempting to herd us around this same mulberry bush:

• 1956: President Eisenhower establishes the President’s Council on Youth Fitness in response to fears that Americans are getting “soft.” The program celebrates its 50th anniversary in 2006, when people were still “soft.”

• 1994: The National Institutes of Health establishes WIN, the Weight-control Information Network. Because being fat is caused by lack of information.

• 1994: U.S. Surgeon General C. Everett Koop launches “Shape Up America!” Eighteen years later, his campaign’s budget is in great shape.

• 2003: The CDC launches a $125 million anti-“obesity” ad campaign called “Verb, it’s what you do.” Because fat children, who are too stupid to understand nutrition labels, must surely obey the rules of grammar.

• 2010: Michelle Obama says, “Let’s Move!” That’s code for “solving the problem of obesity within a generation.” Creepy! Also, given the track record of previous campaigns, she’s smart to set a deadline long after anyone will hold her accountable.

This list doesn’t include the plentiful state and local efforts to eradicate fat people. Clearly, for at least the past 60 years, fat people have not been welcome in America. Officially. The weight blame goes either to fat people personally, to the environment, or both. Either way, two-thirds of us (and at least a fifth of our children) aren’t welcome here. Though unwelcome, we’re sure useful as easy targets.