Conservative as an adjective is entirely appropriate here. As you say, the difference is in what is trying to be conserved.
American conservatives are trying to conserve the ideals of the American Revolution and uphold the Constitution.
Conservatives Muslims want to return to the ideals of the first decades of the Muslim Revolution. To coin a phrase.
The two revolutions have nothing in common and are inherently at war.
I only wish that were true. There are too many around here who want to establish a totalitarian police state cum theocracy instead, and it is this confusion and attempt to hijack the "conservative" agenda which used to be called liberal until New Deal Liberals hijacked the word and caused all sorts of confusion between a liberal, who is a conservative and a Liberal who is not liberal.
—————Conservative as an adjective is entirely appropriate here.—————
But being as we’re talking about CNN.............
That’s not how they meant it.
It’s CNN!
“Conservative as an adjective is entirely appropriate here.”
Let’s not drive over logic’s cliff.
Wanting to “conserve” does not make one a “conservative.” If that were the case, king obuma wanting to conserve Leninism and recreate a Bolshevik October revolution could be labeled “conservative.”
Let’s call a duck a duck.