It is now time to provide some definitions and differences between conservatives and liberals. A good friend of mine (E.F.) who knows me well suggested that I define my two classes of liberals. Good idea.

I have many friends who would label themselves liberal. They are individuals with whom I enjoy rational, intelligent discussions, and I have a respect for their viewpoints.

They won’t change any of my stances, as I won’t theirs, about 98 percent of the time. I would call these individuals moderate Democrats. They are good people to associate with, along with my many conservative friends. Fortunately, they are much more numerous than the second class.

The other type of liberal, the one I am usually referring to in my column, is much more dangerous. They are extreme, left-leaning, irrational, radical liberals normally associated with the far left of the Democratic Party. They use as their role models such people as Ted Kennedy, Howard Dean, Pat Leahy, Dick Durbin, Charles Schumer, Hillary Clinton, Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi and others of their ilk.

Extreme, left-leaning individuals are those people who have one set of rules for themselves and another for those who disagree with them. They are still crying about the 2000 and 2004 elections, and the mention of President Bush causes them to go crazy.

They will blame the president for absolutely everything that has gone wrong, no matter how foolish the association is: Hurricane Katrina, global warming, oil prices, starving children, cutting Social Security for the elderly, any world catastrophe or hardship, even for cutting themselves shaving.

They blame Bush for polluting our air and waters, poisoning our food and allowing our economy to destroy the world. When they state their opinion, they expect you to accept it as fact (Cheney and Halliburton engineered the Iraq war for oil profits being one example of literally hundreds). It matters not that it has no basis in fact.

Their opinions are emotionally driven rather than well-thought-out. If you disagree with them, you hurt their feelings, or they become enraged. In the second case, their faces turn red, their blood pressure shoots up, veins bulge from their temples and small bits of froth appear at the corners of their mouths. You might as well walk away. They will keep ranting and raving and will probably not notice you have left.

Their strategy is to smear or attempt to demean their opponents when they cannot win using facts (the latest confirmation hearings proved this repeatedly). How about their claim that Mrs. Alito staged her crying episode? They believe that the more things they can blame Bush for, the stronger their case.

One of the three negative letters I received, in response to my weapons of mass destruction column, threw in at least eight other issues that Bush was responsible for. They were simple statements of opinion, having nothing to do with my column. These were very shallow statements illustrating no depth of thought.

I think the Democratic Party puts out a tape of these one-liners that all radical extremists memorize and regurgitate on command. It reminds me of a parrot that can be trained to speak a few phrases — a very cute pet, but no one takes it seriously.

This same letter-writer made numerous futile, feeble attempts to insult me. It also displayed a typical level of arrogance commonly found in this radical group. My Manhattan letter-writing friend said, "Most NYC residents — who are among the brightest and best-informed people in the U.S. …" Give me a break! Two of the four negative letters were rambling and disjointed diatribes and were actually longer than my column!

So, in conclusion, you can assume that my style will continue to be in the mode of Michelle Malkin, Ann Coulter, Thomas Sowell and David Limbaugh. They pull no punches, back up their statements with fact, and don’t worry about political correctness. If you don’t want your toes stepped on, don’t put them under my big, heavy, conservative foot.

P.S. Three excellent books to read that you won’t be able to put down: "How to Talk To A Liberal (If You Must)," by Ann Coulter; "Do As I Say (Not As I Do), Profiles in Liberal Hypocrisy," by Peter Schweitzer; and "Unleashed: Exposing Liberals Gone Wild," by Michelle Malkin.

As a matter of fact, here are some of the things Malkin’s liberal enemies said about her: "ought to be shot between those Viet Cong eyes!," "an ugly, obnoxious and semi-literate gook," "one hideous-looking and tremendously stupid woman," "some gook out there pandering to the radical right."

Double standards, anyone? If anyone thinks I am going to stand by and allow that to go unchallenged, think again.

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Tom Sears is a professor of accounting at Hartwick College in Oneonta and serves on the Unatego Central School Board of Education. He can be reached at SearsT@hartwick.edu. His column appears every other week.