THERE'S THIS new print ad campaign by Dove that's become this huge cause celebre in the past few weeks.

If you haven't seen it, you don't have a pulse. It features these women, these impossibly, happy, giddy women. I'm not sure what can make a person so happy, but whatever it is, they got it and I want some. I mean, these ladies are so out-of-control and bursting at the seams with unbridled joy, that if a soundtrack came with the still pictures it'd basically be this huge belly laugh just repeating over and over: HO HO HO HA HA HA HO HO HO WE'RE SO HAPPY HO HO HO HA HA HA HO HO HO!

And quite literally, it would be a belly laugh. Because these women are supposed to represent "real beauty." Instead of fanny- length equine hair and taffy-pulled lean bodies, these babies got back. And thighs and tummies and (yes, I've seen the picture once too often at my gym) very large navels.

Anyway, over the past couple of weeks, Dove has been lauded in advertising circles for helping send a message about body image that parents have been trying to teach their daughters for years: "Be happy with the body you have. (Look! These women are!)"

As an aside, I'm wondering if any of these people in these advertising circles, whoever they are, stopped to think before they lauded. I mean, the ads are for Dove's Intensive Firming Cream, Intensive Firming Lotion and Firming Body Wash. Um, if women should be happy with the bodies they have, why is Dove selling something that can supposedly "firm" them up?

But that's not my point. Because, essentially, I get it. I get that Dove is using women in their natural, unretouched, unemaciated glory. That's a good thing, because there are only about six supermodels in the world, and chances are, you aren't one of them. A supermodel shouldn't represent your ideal body type any more than Bill Gates' portfolio should represent my ideal retirement plan.

The lauding, though, seems like a ridiculous, inaccurate reflection of the big picture. It's like the Bush administration announcing new fuel economy standards for some cars and saying, "See, we really do care about the environment!" while the Hummer H2 drives through an enormous loophole with zero mileage requirements at all and destroys the very terrain it rolls over with every revolution of its wheels and its 10 miles per gallon gas guzzling, 8,500-pound frame.

Oops. Was that in my out-loud voice?

Anyway.