Remember when “compassionate conservative” meant “I’m not a lunatic culture warrior and I care about poor people”? It wasn’t really true, but it was nice to hear. Now the same phrase turns out to mean “I’m a completely lunatic culture warrior with no interest whatever in poor people.”
AP, of course, can’t tell the difference, and just prints the WH spin as straight news.
Bush: Compassionate conservative culture crusader
Mark Kleiman points out how “compassionate conservativism” as espoused by the current version of George W. Bush is a lot more conservative, and a lot less compassionate, than it used