What "conservative" really means.
Late Thursday night I was listening (somewhat involuntarily) to the John Batchelor Show on KGO radio. Batchelor is an uncommon well-mannered right-wing talk show host who spends a lot of time bashing president Obama and liberals in a soft-spoken, intellectual fashion rather than by shouting insults. That night he was complaining that the New York Times and the “liberal” media in general have been using the word “conservative” to describe the hard-line leaders of China and Iran. He argued that the word “conservative” has a very specific meaning in America as a political ideology favoring limited government, low taxes, and that sort of thing - the very opposite of what the heads of China and Iran represent. He then stretched his “logic” to conclude that because liberals (in his mind) associate “conservatives” with “enemies” they now use the two words interchangeably as if there is no distinction, hence their use of the word “conservative” to describe unscrupulous lead