That sure sounds different from Iran's sock puppet "elected" president's continued claims that all of his nation's nuclear facilities -- including the not-so-secret uranium enrichment plant near Qom described during last week's open house at the UN -- are merely geared-up to provide electric energy ASAP. 

But it is, no doubt, consistent with Ahmadinejad's saber-rattling since the Qom disclosure, including test launches of missiles capable of hitting Tel Aviv and US bases in the Middle East and a military parade in Tehran featuring trucked-in missiles that bear the inscription Down with Israel in Farsi and English on their sides.

"This is a serious challenge to the global nonproliferation regime and continues a disturbing pattern of Iranian evasion," President Obama said in his weekly radio address on Saturday. "Iran is on notice that when we meet with them on October 1 they are going to have to come clean and they are going to have to make a choice between international isolation and giving up any aspirations to becoming a nuclear power.  If they refuse to give ground, they will stay on a path that is going to lead to confrontation," Obama continued.

Granted, this is far stronger rhetoric than anyone ever expected to hear from Obama, but he chose to wait until virtually no one was paying attention to utter it, instead of at some meaningful moment this past week when he was flanked by US allies at the UN or later at the G20 gathering in Pittsburgh.

Perhaps, like me, you had a weird experience when you turned on the TV news this morning. The sound and picture came on at the precise moment they were showing a clip of the president glowering and hollering: "We cannot wait any longer!" 

Obama's tuxedo looked out of place at an announcement that we were about to take military action against Iran, but otherwise I was quite impressed with the spectacle of a forceful US leader. 

Then the graphic at the bottom of the screen indicated that the clip was of the president addressing the Congressional Black Caucus on health care in Washington last night.  Serves me right for watching the news before having my second cup of coffee.

Adding insult to injury, the clip ended with Michelle joining Barack on stage.  The first couple did an extremely lame little "dance step" -- an obvious attempt to pander to the ostensibly African-American audience -- before walking off into the night.

I may have been momentarily confused enough to mistake the president's prosecution of his war on Americans for an announcement of a war with Iran.  However, had my TV come to life at the very moment that the Obamas were shown dancing, I could never have mistaken the clip for an excerpt from Soul Train.

Tongue-in-cheek comments aside, it would be comforting to see the president get as down-and-dirty about rogue nations with nukes as he gets with American insurance companies and opponents of his overblown health care offerings.

He took a solemn oath to do the former.  He merely made a campaign promise that he would accomplish the latter.