What's going on is Democrats are coming to recognize and accept that we are not the majority party anymore," said Simon Rosenberg, president of the centrist New Democrat Network and a former challenger to Dean for the party chairmanship. "Democrats recognize we have to fight harder for our values and our ideas.

Republicans believe the shift opens Democrats up to charges of obstructionism. The Republican National Committee is already branding the Democrats as "the party of 'no.' "

"I don't know of any party that has done well as the party of objection," said Matthew Dowd, a senior strategist for Bush's reelection campaign. "I think it's a big risk and it has a lot of political downside."

Yet some Democrats believe that by following a more partisan course, the party is merely emulating Bush's strategy of primarily pursuing policies that motivate his political base.

"Democrats don't trust Bush and don't trust doing business with him," said Bruce Reed, president of the centrist Democratic Leadership Council.

Bush also has made it easier for Democrats to unify by opening his second term with an idea so few of them support: introducing private accounts to Social Security. "Bush couldn't have handed us a better place to start as an opposition than Social Security, because there is so much consensus" against his plan, Pariser said.

At this very moment, there are millions of conservatives across the land who, unbeknown to them, will soon develop an intense personal loathing for Nevada Sen. Harry Reid. The process, inevitable as the changing of the seasons, began on Monday night when the Republican National Committee distributed a 15-page memo accusing Reid, the chief Senate Democrat, of various transgressions.

It's working. Conservative talking heads have already begun expounding upon Reid's treacherous ways. Though many rank-and-file Republicans may have no strong feelings about Reid today, and some have never even heard of him, it won't be long before the very mention of the words "Harry Reid" will send GOP partisans into paroxysms of rage.

The need for the campaign against Reid is clear enough. Unlike the icy Hillary Rodham Clinton or the hotheaded Howard Dean, Harry Reid does not easily lend himself to hostile caricature. He is anti-abortion and anti-gun control. As the New York Times reported, Reid "is appearing more often on national television, where strategists in both parties say he comes off as reasonable and evenhanded."

Republicans carried out a nearly identical operation to drive up antagonism against Tom Daschle, the previous Democratic Senate leader, who was also inconveniently mild-mannered. Republicans sent out talking points, and in short order conservatives everywhere found themselves deeply vexed by the previously inoffensive, low-profile South Dakota senator. Rush Limbaugh, taking the demonization campaign a tad too literally, began calling Daschle "El Diablo." Perhaps now, with the devil himself already having been used, Limbaugh is thumbing through "Paradise Lost" looking for lesser satanic figures after which to name Reid. (My money's on "Beelzebub.")

It's entirely natural that Republicans would have no love for a leading Democrat. And there's nothing wrong with hating a particularly loathsome member of the other party, or even of your own party. I've done plenty of both myself. The trouble is that this particular campaign is highly dishonest.

This kind of transparent propaganda is, sadly, a normal function of political parties. But if you get gulled into believing it, or repeating it, you're either a dupe or a partisan hack.