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George W. Bush says Democrats have no plan:

Weakened by the unpopular Iraq war, President George W. Bush accused Democrats of lacking a plan to win it on Monday as he opened a weeklong drive to maintain Republican control of the U.S. Congress.

He wants Donald Rumsfeld to stay to the bitter end:

President Bush said Wednesday he wants Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Vice President Dick Cheney to remain in his administration until the end of his presidency, extending a job guarantee to two of the most-criticized members of his team.

In case you forgot, Rumsfeld is the man with no plan:

Long before the United States invaded Iraq in 2003, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld forbade military strategists to develop plans for securing a postwar Iraq, the retiring commander of the Army Transportation Corps said [in September].

In fact, said Brig. Gen. Mark Scheid, Rumsfeld said “he would fire the next person” who talked about the need for a postwar plan.

Well, uh… let’s see. Rumsfeld’s “no plan” is better than the Democrats’ lack of a plan because it’s intentional — that’s it! And Rumsfeld’s No Plan Plan has a track record. Why, just look at how well it’s working out:

A classified briefing prepared two weeks ago by the United States Central Command portrays Iraq as edging toward chaos, in a chart that the military is using as a barometer of civil conflict. …

It shows a sharp escalation in sectarian violence since the bombing of a Shiite shrine in Samarra in February, and tracks a further worsening this month despite a concerted American push to tamp down the violence in Baghdad.

In fashioning the index, the military is weighing factors like the ineffectual Iraqi police and the dwindling influence of moderate religious and political figures, rather than more traditional military measures such as the enemy’s fighting strength and the control of territory.

The conclusions the Central Command has drawn from these trends are not encouraging, according to a copy of the slide that was obtained by The New York Times. The slide shows Iraq as moving sharply away from “peace,” an ideal on the far left side of the chart, to a point much closer to the right side of the spectrum, a red zone marked “chaos.” As depicted in the command’s chart, the needle has been moving steadily toward the far right of the chart.

Considering this track record, and Bush’s determination to stick with the author of the No Plan Plan, our course now is clear: we’ve got to lame these ducks!