Conservatives, Liberals, Republicans, Democrats

[slimshdy425]

As we know, people often refer to republicans as conservatives and democrats as liberals. This is a stereotype that seems to never change, despite what the parties are actually doing.
Look at Bush. While a conservative president would be, well, conservative about the economy, Bush is not. He's basically spending as much money as he wants to fight in the Middle East and has therefore caused a tremendous national deficit. He wants to privatize social security, a risky move that no 'conservative' would do.
Clinton's presidency, although he's considered liberal for being a democrat, basically 'conserved' things the way they were. He didn't fight any wars and kept the economy at a steadily growing, safe rate. Al Gore's candidacy didn't seem very liberal as his famous 'lockbox' plan has shown.
My point is that the term republican is not interchangeable with the term conservative, and the term democrat is not interchangeable with liberal.
A few days ago I made a point about the fallacies of the Bush administration and a friend instantly called me a liberal. This just doesn't seem right.