Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) sat down this week with Salon’s Walter Shapiro, which was a bit of a surprise, given that the magazine and the senator don’t agree on too much right now.<\/p>\n
Most of Lieberman’s comments were about what you’d expect, but one exchange<\/a> stood out.<\/p>\n JL: I worry that whoever gets the Democratic nomination will have a hard time scampering back to assure people that they’re prepared to take on the Islamist extremists and [any] other nation that threatens our security.<\/p>\n WS: Turning to another thing —<\/p>\n JL: They don’t use that. You’ll have to check it. But they don’t use the term “Islamist extremism” or “Islamist terrorism” in the debates.<\/p>\n WS: Are you saying it’s “political correctness” on the part of the Democrats?<\/p>\n JL: You’ve got to acknowledge the problem.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n This, of course, is the tack Rudy Giuliani has enthusiastically embraced<\/a>. It’s not enough to support aggressive counter-terrorism measures; for Lieberman and Giuliani, a person’s commitment to the issue is based largely on whether he or she is willing to use the words “Islamic” and “terrorism” next to each other.<\/p>\n\n