"The liberals are gone. The leftists have consumed them."

I extracted this from the comments section on this Blog Posting: I'm Maureen Dowd and I've been had. The commentor has an intersting take on leftist vs liberal . It is helpful to realize you can't paint everyone with the same brush.

I love liberals, Roger…as I suspect you do. Many of them surround my daily life. But I despise leftists. A liberal is ruled by compassion, a leftist by deceit.
A liberal wants to try a different approach, a leftist wants to replace the system.
A liberal believes in fair play and honest disagreement, a leftist believes in hiding the truth and crushing dissent.
A liberal believes you may have a point, a leftist believes there are no points other than his.
A liberal says this country is great, but can be greater through dialogue. A leftist believes some other country is great and this country makes him puke.
A liberal wants equality for all persons regardless of gender, color or creed, a leftist wants class and racial warfare.
A liberal wants to take the poor and give them a chance to be rich, a leftist wants to take the rich and make them poor.
Here is where my overlay given today’s facts needs closest examination. Are we in the midst of a compassionate liberal agenda or does it contain the venom and windpipe crushingbrutality of a cramdown of leftism? Does it gain height by stepping on the necks of principled dissenters? Does it seek elevation via the digging of trenches for those on the wrong side of class warfare? Does it seek racial warfare through name calling (cowards)? Does it seek to attack the wealthy and make them poor…in order to gain parity, but not equality? Does it seek to mask the truth…suggesting that newly created problems are “inherited”?
And if it does these things, does it suggest that the implementation of this new system is not classic liberalism, but entrenched leftism? I leave that to others to decide, but in forecasting the differences…I certainly wanted to see how this played out.
The liberals are gone, Roger. The leftists have consumed them. I love the liberals, I despise the leftists. What Christopher cannot see…is the leftist magicians on stage, not with their trinkets hidden up their sleeves…but dangling from them in plain view…and daring us to shout out what we see….because, if we do…they will scream that we are racist and paranoid and not nuanced enough to appreciate the trick they are about to pull.
And if a brilliant and informed man like Christopher Buckley can be taken in by the sleight of hand, what possible chance does that leave for those who stand to vote the difference in this election? I’m afraid this magician’s show will make many of our fondest liberties disappear. For that, we will all pay the price of admission.