What, exactly, is a 'liberal'?

You hear a whole lot of political jargon thrown around these days. And perhaps no words are hurled with more reckless abandon than the labels "liberal" and "conservative."

There was a time when I could have told you what those words meant. But these days, I haven't a clue.

Of course, if you look them up in the dictionary, you can learn that "liberal" supposedly indicates someone who is "open to new behavior or opinions and willing to discard traditional values." Likewise, "conservative" is used to describe someone who is "holding to traditional attitudes and values and is cautious about change or innovation."

Well, those definitions may have once held true, but we all know they've been outdated for years.

Though the meaning of the labels has evolved through time, it has still been relatively simple to understand the difference between a liberal and a conservative, at least until recently. In simplest terms, liberals were in favor of big government, seeing government as a positive agent of change. Conversely, conservatives were in favor of small government, seeing government as the problem, not the solution.

Of course, there were other nuances to it all. On social issues, liberals tended to favor greater acceptance of things like homosexuality, environmentalism and civil rights. Conservatives, on the other hand, tended to be the traditionalists, with family and religion being the key motivators.

Needless to say, for a long time, it was pretty easy to look at a politician and observe whether he or she was a so-called "liberal" or a so-called "conservative."

But that's not so much the case anymore.

Exhibit A is President George W. Bush. Under the Bush administration, the size of the federal government has grown at a rate not seen for decades. Bush has created an entirely new government department, and launched the country into a nation-building campaign. To top it all off, Bush has signed nearly every spending bill to cross his desk.

Now, social issues aside for the moment, that description sounds to me like somebody who is pretty enthusiastic when it comes to big government. Yet if you ask pundits around the country — or George W. Bush himself — you'll be assured that the president is, in fact, a conservative.

Doesn't quite add up to me.

Exhibit B is Sen. John McCain, a current candidate for president. McCain is a candidate who opposes wasteful government spending, opposes gun control wants to make abortion illegal. His campaign calls for tax cuts, and he's a proponent of a strong military.

Now, based on what I've always understood the terms to mean, McCain seems to pretty clearly embody many of the ideals of the "conservative" political spectrum. But alas, this is not the case. According to the wise folks on talk radio, McCain is, in fact, a died-in-the-wool liberal. Apparently his habit of reaching across party lines is a big no-no for true conservatives.

So now, I'm confused. If a big-government president like George W. Bush is a "conservative," and somebody like John McCain is now classified as a "liberal," something obviously changed when I wasn't paying attention. Either the meaning of the words has again morphed, or I never understood them in the first place.

Regardless, I think I'm going to base my voting decisions this year on something other than small-minded political labels.