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 probably don't agree on too much right now.

Most of Lieberman's comments were about what you'd expect, but one exchange stood out.

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.

WS: Turning to another thing --

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.

WS: Are you saying it's "political correctness" on the part of the Democrats?

JL: You've got to acknowledge the problem.

This, of course, is the tack Rudy Giuliani has enthusiastically embraced. It's not enough to support aggressive counter-terrorism measures; for Lieberman and Giuliani, a person's fealty to the cause is based largely on whether he or she is willing to use the words "Islamic" and "terrorism" next to each other.

I'm curious, then, what Lieberman and Giuliani have to say about the Bush White House, which John Dickerson noted this week, also refrains from using the phrase.

Are Bush and Cheney excessively "politically correct" in Lieberman's eyes? And to what extent does he see that as "the problem"?