Help me with something........

So, I have been wondering something lately. Why are conservatives called conservative and liberals called liberals, when in fact, someones they are the exact opposites? For example, GW is known as a Republican, or Conservative. However, domestically his fiscal policy is terrible and the national debt has exploded. Would that not be considered a liberal way of looking at things? The way I look at it, a conservative is just that, very conservative in how he/she spends money. However, his foreign policy is the same as most "Conservatives" but by definition I would think it would have to be a liberal policy.....The reason I say that is because wouldn't a conservative be very careful about doing anything and a liberal would just kind of jump into things?

The reason I bring all of this up is we throw people under an umbrella of either conservative or liberal, but for example I would call myself a social conservative and also a conservative based on foreign policy. The goofy part of this is that based on our crazy definitions of politicians people would probably call me a liberal because people seem to throw you under an umbrella more for your foreign policy thoughts than they do based on your domestic views.

All of that probably makes no sense, but basically the Websters dictionary defintion of liberal and conservative is not exactly in line with what politicians call themselves. Go figure, politicians say one thing but actually mean another.....