Joel Engel has a piece on the shifting meanings of the word liberal. He wants to retrieve the word for an older, better liberalism. Fair enough. And several of his specific points are reasonable. But a few of them go overboard in a way that weakens his force. Here is how he starts his litany of liberal betrayals of liberalism: “BUT ALAS, somewhere over the last two decades or so, liberalism lost its root as the word liberal was perverted to the point of Orwellian inversion–and therefore rendered meaningless. For example, rooting against the United States and for ‘insurgents’ who delight in slaughtering innocents is many things (stupid, for one, also sad, evil, and short-sighted), but it is assuredly not liberal. Decrying the American ‘religious right’ for advocating a ‘culture of life’ while simultaneously praising the neck-slicing Islamofascists is many things (start with pathetic), but it is not liberal. Calling 3,000 workers who died when the buildings fell ‘little Eichmanns’ is many things (vile, as well as repulsive and morally repugnant), but it is not liberal.”

All of that is true–but most contemporary liberals would presumably agree with those sentiments. It may be that liberals should be criticized for not doing enough to distance themselves from people who hold these sentiments; but it is neither true nor fair, I think, to suggest that most liberals hold those sentiments themselves. And it advances no worthwhile cause to depict our society as more divided than it actually is.