Could invading Iraq really have anything in common with sending a wine glass crashing to the floor while browsing at Pottery Barn?

Absolutely not, say the folks at Pottery Barn, who are miffed by a metaphor attributed to Secretary of State Colin Powell in a new book by Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward. The book debuts in bookstores today.

Supposedly Powell warned Bush that if he sent U.S. troops to Iraq, "you're going to be owning this place." That was based on what Powell and his deputy Richard Armitage called "the Pottery Barn rule" of "you break it, you own it."

It happened that Pottery Barns protested that they have no such rule...