Who Has No Plan?

President Bush's foremost political liability going into the mid-term elections is that the American people aren't happy he took the nation to war in Iraq and don't believe he has a way out.

In other words, they think Bush made a mess and has no idea how to clean it up.

Now, in what may be the ultimate show of Karl Rovian chutzpah, Bush is righteously attacking Democrats for not having a plan to clean up the mess he himself made.

It's a classic Rove technique to attack his opponents' strengths from a position of weakness -- no matter how deficient his own candidate's position may be.

But in this case, the public seems to have already reached some pretty definite conclusions.

According to the latest New York Times/CBS News poll , only 26 percent of Americans think Bush has "developed a clear plan for dealing with the situation in Iraq." A resounding 69 percent don't believe he has a clear plan at all (not to mention a good one.)

And while Democrats have not united behind any one course of action in Iraq, the public does seem to have a pretty good idea about what they'll do if they take control of Congress.

Some 41 percent think Democrats will try to decrease the number of troops in Iraq, and another 40 percent think Democrats will try to remove all troops from Iraq. That's 81 percent in all who seem convinced that Democrats will try to reverse Bush's "stay the course" strategy, and start bringing the troops home.

The New Offensive

Here's the text of Bush's speech yesterday in Nevada: "Oh, I've heard the Democrats. I'm sure you have, too. If you listen for their plan on Iraq, they don't have one. On this crucial issue facing the country, they don't have a plan for victory. And I want to remind our fellow citizens, harsh criticism and second-guessing is not a plan."

Here's Tony Snow on CNN yesterday, talking to Wolf Blitzer: "What's interesting in this political season, Wolf, is you can ask about the president's conduct in the war, but there's also an interesting issue that I think people are going to consider between now and Election Day, which is who is actually talking about winning this war?

"Because Democrats took the calculated position going into this campaign that they'd spend their time talking about how much they didn't like George W. Bush. And there's been a concerted effort to go after the president and it has worked. . . .

"[B]ut on the other hand, is that really, do you really want to say, OK, I've called the president some bad names, so let me lead you. I don't think so."