“Oh,” said the columnist from the Wall Street Journal. “We’ll be hearing a lot more about that!”

Morning Joe shook his big head and smiled knowingly. The other commentators on MSNBC-TV smirked as if to say, “Oh boy. The **** will hit the fan for sure.”

They were talking about Barack Obama’s “liberal” voting record.

The consensus was that Obama’s “liberal” record will make him vulnerable to attack by John McCain, the presumptive Republican candidate in this year’s presidential election.

So how come “liberal” is such a dirty word?

What’s a liberal, anyway?

Is it someone who thinks that children should have food when they’re hungry and health care when they’re sick?

Who feels you should be judged by your character and not the color of your skin?

Who has compassion for the downtrodden, the aged and the infirm?

Who treats others as he or she would like to be treated?

Who respects the privacy of others and their right to choose their own lifestyle?

Who would rather see our country negotiate peacefully than impose its will on other nations through mass murder and random destruction of property?

If that’s what a liberal is, I say let’s have more liberals in power and fewer John McCains.