It's getting harder and harder to understand what the Democrats are up to. On the surface, nothing they are doing, or saying, makes much political sense. David Brooks, writing in The Weekly Standard, offers his explanation.

ACROSS THE COUNTRY Republicans and conservatives are asking each other the same basic question: Has the other side gone crazy? Have the Democrats totally flipped their lids? Because every day some Democrat seems to make a manic or totally over-the-top statement about George Bush, the Republican Party, and the state of the nation today.

''This republic is at its greatest danger in its history because of this administration,'' says Democratic senator Robert Byrd.

''I think this is deliberate, intentional destruction of the United States of America,'' says liberal commentator Bill Moyers.

George Bush's economic policy is the ''most radical and dangerous economic theory to hit our shores since socialism,'' says Senator John Edwards.

''The Most Dangerous President Ever'' is the title of an essay in the American Prospect by Harold Meyerson, in which it is argued that the president Bush most closely resembles is Jefferson Davis.

Tom Daschle condemns the ''dictatorial approach'' of this administration. John Kerry says Bush ''deliberately misled'' America into the Iraq war. Asked what Democrats can do about the Republicans, Janet Reno recalls her visit to the Dachau concentration camp, and points out that the Holocaust happened because many Germans just stood by. ''And don't you just stand by,'' she exhorts her Democratic audience.