Tonight we were shooting a TPMtv run-down of the list of whackjobs Rudy Giuliani has advising him on foreign policy. And believe me, that's not hyperbole: Rudy's national security 'brain trust' basically amounts to all the neocons and Arab-haters who were too extreme to cut it on the Bush team. But when we were shooting, it occurred to me how far the language has been manipulated to excise the serviceable and highly descriptive word "war" from our vocabulary.

This is not wholly new of course. War ministries across the world were renamed "Defense" ministries or departments after World War II. And the Korean and Vietnam Wars were classified as "police actions." But when we were running through the list of Rudy's advisors who are gung-ho supporters of going to war with Iran, I was struck by how few of them use the word -- and these folks aren't shrinking violets, but full-blown bombs to mask personal insecurities armchair generals like Norman Podhoretz.

Podhoretz insists we need to "strike" Iran, "bomb" Iran and "take military action" against Iran. But we couldn't find any instance of his saying we absolutely positively had to go to war with Iran. When I described his position, I simply said that he insists we must go to war with Iran. Was that editorializing? Going beyond what he's actually said? I don't think so. Can anyone really imagine that we can launch a decapitating strike against Iran's nuclear facilities and elite Army units and not find ourselves in something we can only refer to as "war"?