They're saber rattling -- again, this time about Iran.

As Todd Gitlin writes:

The Democrats have to stand up this week, loud, clear, and demonstrative, and declare that they will not get hustled into supporting a mindless, counterproductive attack on Iran. They will not appropriate funds for it. Half of them in the Senate got hustled at the equivalent moment in 2002 and now regret it, even if are only willing to use the euphemism "if I knew then what I know now."

One thing they all must know now is who they are dealing with in the White House. The mania of George Bush and Dick Cheney is not the sum of all dangers today but it is, after all, a known quantity.

This time, for sure, post-facto regret won't do.

Bush/Cheney will have no qualms about dumping two messes on to the next president, while also using the amplified war presence to further paint Dems as war-weak, thus returning to their tried-and-true playbook in an election year. Fear and intimidation is all they know.

But we're not really going to trust these guys to orchestrate another attack, are we? Leaving aside the problems of such with our stretched-thin military, Bush Inc. lied to get us into Iraq, they proceeded to get everything wrong in that gambit, the American public made a clear statement last November about their appetite for war, and yet now we're to allow these incompetents to blunder us into another debacle waiting to happen?

The sad fact is perhaps Iran should be attacked in some form or fashion and perhaps under a different administration they would be trusted to go ahead. But we sadly can't trust the current bunch of cretins so in effect their track record of gross negligence and purposeful deception has left us more vulnerable and dangerously paralyzed. During this time in our history, the last thing we can afford to have is leadership with zero credibility -- but that's exactly what we've got.