Nobody would have batted an eyelid if Karl Rove had said “leftists” instead of “liberals.” But the effort to make the two terms interchangable was really the doing of left-liberals, not of conservatives, because “leftist” became a pejorative. Now “liberal” is a pejorative in the eyes of the public, twice as many of whom identify themselves as “conservative” rather than “liberal.” Maybe if liberals acted like liberals instead of like leftists — if they stood for freedom of the individual at home and the advance of liberty abroad — the term would regain its deserved honor.