What the hell is a 'liberal Republican' besides a Dem figment or a puppet?

Another article in search of a fisking: "An autopsy of liberal Republicans."

My title dispatches Silverleib's.

Next comes a political science lesson on conservatism in Pennsylvania that makes a pretty good case for a strong conservative tradition in the Keystone state. Directly followed by the claim that Spekter's defection is proof of "just how far the Republican Party has fallen in its ancestral homeland of the Northeast..."

Wouldn't that be the exception touted as the rule?

Next rhetorical claim: "What happened to Specter's breed of fiscally conservative, socially progressive, temperamentally moderate Northeastern officeholders?"

They're called RINOs. Not new, and party-switching to hang onto your seat isn't new either. It has yet to be proven if Spekter can match Lieberman's success with a new, political party affiliation.

The rest of the fisking is left to the reader as an exercise.