OpinionJournal - Peggy Noonan

Here is my read on a lot of Democratic senators: They think they know more than their base and they think they're more--how to put it?--stable in their view of the world than their base. In their hearts, in fact, they don't really like their base. (They like--they love--the old base: old union guys who drink Schlitz and voted for FDR and JFK. But today those old union guys are mostly dead, dying or Republican.)

Democratic leaders in Washington are in a worse position than Republican leaders in Washington. Neither likes their base, really, and both think they are smarter. But the Democrats think, deep down, that their base is barking mad. The Republicans don't. They just think their base is a bore.

Yeah, that is exactly what I thought. Barking Mad. You can't hardly have a conversation without a conspiracy theory or two popping out. Of course, there is the xenophobic over reaction of the Republican base as well demanding crazy immigration enforcement and telling our allies we don't trust them to manage parts of our business platforms and ports when we have Chinese running ports seems, well, nearly as barking mad. But, not quite. I'm afraid every time some lunatic tells me that the President either let 9/11 happen or participated in setting it up in order to commit war, I feel my sanity level teeter dangerously close to manic a$$ kicking.OpinionJournal - Peggy Noonan