Can A Liberal Be a Libertarian?

I found this interesting post on the different way that conservatives and liberals define the idea of libertarianism (even more relevant now, after tonight's debate). I guess if you boil it all down, the key difference depends on who you are seeking 'freedom' from. Conservatives define the enemy as government all together; liberals define it as run-amok corporatism and government moralizers.

I would never describe myself as a libertarian, but I appreciate these distinctions. They speak to the reality that liberals see the government as playing an important role in our society (regulatory functions, providing a social safety net for those the free market leaves behind, controlling the basic infrastructure holding our society together), while also wanting to stay away from our personal lives and decisions-- ie. who we marry, our day-to-day actions, etc.

I find traditional, conservative libertarianism to be too paranoid on one hand (the government is coming to steal your money/guns/etc) and naive on the other hand (believing a deregulated free-market-- what I see as corporate anarchy-- will lift us all up, if we just pull ourselves up by our bootstraps). Unlike a true liberal government (the immediate post-New Deal era was the closest we've had, though the larger society was still prejudiced at the time), we've actually had this type of society in the past. It was a complete disaster.

I wish the larger liberal/Democratic movement was better at articulating these distinctions.