Debating liberals is like shooting fish in a barrel ... so, being who they are, they resort to name calling. Fact is, I'm warming up to the term "Neocon" ... may need a bumper sticker.
Neo-con and neo-liberal extend back to the 1970s at least. The neo-cons supported both military and public spending (think Scoop Jackson) as well as a militant foreign policy (esp. as it pertained to supporting Israel). The neo-liberals supported a sort-of third way; big public sector but trying to harness markets (think Paul Tsongas or Bill Bradley) I think that Tsongas wrote a book of the name neo-liberal in the late 1970s, and the New Republic was a neo-liberal magazine.