If you believe the polls, there is a frightening disconnect in American politics today. Polls show that while voters believe Iraq and the war on terror are the most important issues, they are leaning toward restoring congressional control to the party that is too arrogant and disorganized to tell us what it would do on those issues if elected.

Many of us have so often stated that Democrats don't have a plan for Iraq that I am concerned voters are either numb to it or think it's just another Republican talking point. But it is undeniably true.

Democrats have been holding their breath throughout the campaign season, praying they could hold on to an apparent lead by relying solely on their criticism of the president's policies and without revealing their hand on the war.

They had no other issues to run on, since the robustness of the Bush economy became too obvious for them to distort it and their faint toward social conservatism was too absurd to sustain, even with the mini-explosion of isolated Republican "morality" scandals.

They also did their best to avoid national security and the war on terror, knowing that public scrutiny would highlight their unacceptably irresponsible softness on both. Beyond scandalmongering and distraction, their campaign has centered on segregating Iraq from the war on terror, then painting Bush and Republicans as wholly incompetent and immoral concerning the initiation and prosecution of that war.

Democrats have been laboring to make this a referendum on the president's performance in Iraq without regard to what they would do differently.

I'm banking on the voters' rejection of that approach and, to the extent that the congressional elections are nationalized, their refusal to roll the dice on the elusive Democrats. It would be one thing to take a chance on an agenda-less party during peacetime, but it is quite a risk to do so during wartime, especially given this party's well-known propensities against the aggressive prosecution of the war.

Nothing better illustrates the Democrats' duplicity and emptiness concerning Iraq than the manifestly contradictory statements of two of their leaders in the last few days preceding the election.

Congressman Murtha, who probably represents the bulk of his party, reiterated his nauseating, America-denigrating contention that the United States cannot win militarily in Iraq. We must resolve this matter diplomatically, he said, meaning we must negotiate with terrorists, and we must redeploy, meaning withdraw -- very, very soon. Continued...