Tony Snow makes an excellent point about the Democrats’ position–that long-term central planning doesn’t work much better in war than in agriculture or industry:

The only flaw in the Orderliness Hypothesis is that it doesn’t work if people are present. The war on poverty looked great on paper. It failed miserably in real life. Air-cleansing regulatory schemes looked great in computer models, but failed abysmally in reality. Centralized health care boasted of chalkboard elegance, but is breaking the bank right here, right now. The myth of managed affluence collapsed with the Berlin Wall.

And yet, failure has not altered Democratic thinking an iota. John Kerry boasted dozens of times in his debates with George W. Bush that he had a plan — for everything: dental care, tree planting, street paving, book binding, teen rutting, mass transit, air circulation, steel production … you name it. He announced these schemes with a sense of triumph, as if having a plan were superior to having a clue.

In resisting President Bush’s infinitely variable approach to the ever-shifting situation in Iraq, Democrats have reverted to form. The cries for benchmarks and deadlines merely embody their weird faith in plans. Howard Dean unwittingly captured the absurdity of it all when he announced this week the precise number of National Guard units required to subdue Al-Qaida.

[Update at 11:30 AM]

Rich Lowry says that the Dems are dazed and confused:

The sight of Murtha denouncing (even incoherently) the war was too much temptation for House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D., Calif.). The House Democrats