Did we really all rush home to hear it? Were we that naive? Did we not realize that all we would hear was “he has attacked his neighbors” and “twelve years of defiance” and “the world’s most dangerous weapons” all over again?

Actually, it was “the most lethal weapons ever devised” this time; “world’s most dangerous weapons” was from the State of the Union address. I had a pointless stray thought about that line: do you think Bush’s speechwriters are deliberately trying to remind us of The World Scariest Police Chases and other staples of late-1990s reality TV, or do you think this White House hires writers whose minds have been colonized by the Fox network?

Oh, well, war this week. It’s been inevitable from the day the Bushies raised the possibility. Now, at least, we more or less know when it's going to start.