The standard thing to say about the various Republican primaries this year is that the tea party movement has lost one race after another. That's a defensible conclusion but also an oversimplification.

Bipartisanship is dead. That's the conventional wisdom, and there's a lot of evidence to support it.

"Why do you think President Obama's job rating is falling, even though the economy is recovering?" the interviewer asked.

It's a fair question, even though the economy declined 2.9 percent in the first quarter, even though most jobs created in June were part-time, and even though labor force participation remains low.

Liberals just aren't very liberal these days. The word "liberal" comes from the Latin word meaning freedom, and in the 19th century, liberals in this country and abroad stood for free speech, free exercise of religion, free markets, free trade -- for minimal state interference in people's lives.

The flood of underage -- and nonunderage -- illegal immigrants from Central America coming across the border in Texas is, to paraphrase a former Obama administration official, a "man-caused disaster." The man who caused it, more than anyone else, is Barack Obama.

Skitter, scamper, scuttle. That seems to be the mode of the Obama administration of late.

Skitter away from your red line in Syria. Scamper off to a meeting you'd previously nixed with Texas Gov. Rick Perry.

Seldom in American history has the Supreme Court unanimously rejected positions advocated by presidents' administrations.

But in this respect at least, President Obama has produced the fundamental transformation he promised in his 2008 campaign. Over the last three years, the court has rejected Obama administration positions repeatedly in unanimous 9-0 decisions.

I'm old enough to remember when American liberals cherished the freedom of speech guaranteed by the First Amendment. They celebrated especially the freedom accorded those with unpopular beliefs and protested attempts to squelch the expression of differing opinions.

Polls show that most Americans wanted the United States to withdraw from Iraq. Barack Obama did indeed withdraw U.S. forces from Iraq, not troubling to negotiate a readily negotiable status of forces agreement that would have left a contingent of American soldiers there.

Last week I set out a 2016 nightmare scenario for Republicans -- not one that seems likely, but one that can be extrapolated from current polling.

In that spirit, let me set out a 2016 nightmare scenario for Democrats -- again, not likely but a plausible extrapolation.