A news article from Tel Aviv about the Israeli politician Yair Lapid includes a reference to "the revelation that he met in April with Sheldon Adelson, the ultraconservative financier who backs Mr. Netanyahu and owns the Israel Hayom newspaper that loyally supports him."
It'd be great to have a little more transparency from the Times about precisely what makes the difference between a plain-vanilla conservative and a full-on "ultra" conservative. What is it about Mr. Adelson that merits the label "ultraconservative" as opposed to merely "conservative." Is it that he supports Jewish causes? Is it that he has a lot of money? A quick look though the Times online archive indicates that the term has been previously used in the paper to describe the Taliban, the Afghanistan-based Islamist group whose political ideology doesn't seem to me to have much in common with that of Mr. Adelson, an American Jewish hotel and casino executive. From the perspective of an ultraliberal New York Times reporter, editor, or reader, even mildly right-of-center individuals appear "ultraconservative." It tells you more about the New York Times than it does about Mr. Adelson.