Last week, Hank Stuever, a staff writer for the Washington Post, penned an encomium for Skankapalooza 2004 in the paper's Style section.

As a staff writer for a bastion of objective journalism, he could hardly restrain his unbounded enthusiasm for the event:

The March for Women's Lives, an impressive and congenial amassing of hundreds of thousands of abortion rights advocates held yesterday, succeeded where other lefty assemblages on the National Mall of late have stumbled: It felt both urgent and singularly focused on its cause, instead of coming at you jampacked with multiple issues and distracting freak shows.

This was a big multi-generational Vagina Monologue, starring everyone. The vibe of the day-long rally was at once good-humored and yet deadly serious. It was aggressive and even occasionally, almost delightfully, profane...

Sounds like fun. And this is before he begins to gush.

Of course, we all saw bits and pieces of this vaunted congeniality, such as the signs that said "Abort Bush in the first term" and "If only Barbara Bush had a choice," and Stuever also describes "a guy in a long pink sarong-style skirt with a white dress shirt and necktie and pink do-rag on his head"--no freak show there. But the writer then gives us some insight into his own perspective:

And the guys! These could be, like, some of the best boyfriends and husbands ever. They all have perfect three-day stubble and look like Gideon Yago from MTV....Many of the men were also wearing "This Is What a Feminist Looks Like" T-shirts. One Asian American guy had on a pink shirt that said "Cute Guys for Women's Lives," and he was cute...

Keep in mind, these words were written by someone named Hank. But he's not finished effusing yet:

Then a spoken-word poet stood onstage and waved her arms around and riffed on the Con-stitution, the coun-try, coun-ter-revolutions -- except in each of those c-words, please insert the naughty c-word. (The one we're not supposed to say in print.)

Now you're speaking the language of the modern movement.

Ah, yes, the modern, congenial, light-hearted, cerebral movement. Great job by the Washington Post in providing the sober analysis.

(Thanks to Diana West's column for the heads-up on the Post article.)