"I whooped and applauded as Medea Benjamin... spoke eloquently of the trauma and horror inflicted by the invasion on the women and children of Iraq."

Whooping and applause is the right reaction to stories of trauma and horror? Well, yeah, if you're Camille Paglia. She was having what she calls her "peak Web moment of recent weeks," watching some video of a Code Pink encounter with Hillary Clinton that took place 2003.

Here's the video. You can see women in pink, swaying and singing about peace. Hillary Clinton arrives and says: "You guys look like a big bunch of pink tulips." Wearing turquoise herself, Hillary stands through a mini-lecture from a woman wearing a pink tunic with a scrawled message that includes the huge, misspelled "Hilary." Hillary graciously hears out the woman and then articulates her reasons for voting for the Iraq war. There's more lecturing from a woman in the group, and Hillary tries to appease them with some criticism of President Bush and then deftly disaggregates herself from the meeting.

Paglia: "There's a priceless moment when a protester strips off her pink slip and hands it to Hillary (who had just voted for the war resolution the prior October) as a symbol of her flunking this ethical test. Hillary, who has problems when life departs from script, at first takes the gift, then yanks her hand back and loses her temper. The hapless slip is seized by a female flunky and abducted. It's a classic!"

I don't see Hillary losing her temper. She was right to subtly shrink from a photo op intended to make her look bad. It's not a "gift." It's a visual pun, and she's right not to look grateful for an insult.

And let's not forget that a slip is an item of underwear. When people come up and try to hand you underwear, it shows good instincts not to accept it.