We can’t have what’s going on everywhere else happening here,” said Rich Griffith, a Pontiac, MI, resident and a passenger aboard Northwest Airlines Flight 253, which on Christmas Day narrowly escaped a terrorist attack by a Nigerian man claiming an al-Qaeda affiliation and carrying in his underpants a crude bomb with a faulty detonator. Now, we were living in downtown Manhattan on September 11, 2001, and so believe us when we say that we can understand how Mr. Griffith might have been in shock when he emerged from the plane unscathed and gave this choice quotation to the Associated Press. And but for just that reason, it is striking that the jingoist sentiment expressed by Mr. Griffith, still in a daze, so closely resembles what our cool-headed elected officials, home for the holidays and presumably not in any state of shock, were saying over the weekend.

For instance, in an appearance yesterday on ABC’s “This Week,” White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs told the nation that President Barack Obama “is very confident that this government is taking the steps that are necessary to take—to take our fight to those that seek to do us harm.” Note the evasive construction (i.e. “the government” is taking these steps, not Mr. Obama) and note also the familiar bombast of Mr. Obama’s predecessor, President George W. Bush, who also did a lot of shit talking about taking the fight to those who seek to do us harm, and then went and invaded Iraq instead. (Understandably, Talking Points Memo’s Josh Marshall joked on Saturday that it was “hard not to see [the] logic for invading Iraq a second time”—though we’re guessing he meant a third.) Mr. Gibbs added that, “We’ve strengthened our partnerships and cooperation with a number of countries, including Yemen, Somalia and Pakistan [...] and we’ve had great success in all three of those countries.”

These comments, though total horseshit, could not hold a candle in terms of saber rattling yesterday to the remarks Senator Joseph Lieberman made in an appearance on “Fox News Sunday.” Mr. Lieberman suggested that, “If we don’t act preemptively, Yemen will be tomorrow’s war.” The senator might want to hire some new staffers, because apparently no one in his office had informed him that the United States military has already gotten busy in Yemen, lately delivering air strikes that have killed numerous civilians, while—as usual—missing their alleged al-Qaeda targets. These bombings, to quote Mr. Gibbs, have been a great success. What better evidence of that success could you want, Mr. Lieberman, than Friday’s retributive bombing attempt?