The post-WWII conservative movement has never been isolationist or protectionist and has consistently been pro-Israel. It has also been full of ex-Marxists. The likes of Francis and Thomas Fleming are open in their detestation of the actually existing conservative movement of the past 50+ years. Francis himself has written, as cited in Frum's original article:
"While paleos sometimes like to characterize their beliefs as merely the continuation of the conservative thought of the 1950s and '60s, and while in fact many of them do have their personal and intellectual roots in the conservatism of that era, the truth is that what is now called paleoconservatism is at least as new as the neoconservatism at which many paleos like to sniff as a newcomer." — SAMUEL FRANCIS, IN THE AMERICAN CONSERVATIVE, DECEMBER 16, 2002
If you want to say that pre-WWII America-Firsters, oldline Southern Democrats, Slobodan Milosevic and Jacques Le Pen's National Front are the "traditional conservative movement," that's fine, but there isn't any other sense in which Pat Buchanan and Sam Francis and Thomas Fleming are "traditional conservatives."
Novak, I'll agree, is not exactly a paleo -- he's just a strident apologist for Arab terrorism. And a Democrat, by the way.
The paleo amen-corner (to coin a phrase) can vent their spite on Frum as much as they choose, but the fact is that Frum's original article has condemned the paleo leadership out of their own mouths. That the leading paleos hate America -- the real country that's not an idea in their minds -- is not some outlandish charge or some subtle inference. They say outright that they hate this country. Buchanan trumpets his spite against the America which actually exists on page 6 of his Death of the West:
"We are two countries, two peoples. An older America is passing away, and a new America is coming into its own. The new Americans who grew up in the 1960s and the years since did not like the old America. They thought it a bigoted, reactionary, repressive, stodgy country. So they kicked the dust from their heels and set out to build a new America, and they have succeeded. To its acolytes the cultural revolution has been a glorious revolution. But to millions, they have replaced the good country we grew up in with a cultural wasteland and a moral sewer that are not worth living in and not worth fighting for--their country, not ours" (p. 6).
The troops in Iraq are not fighting for Pat Buchanan's "good" America of yesteryear. They are fighting for the real America, which Pat says straight out is not his country. Pat can puff and blow about supporting the troops all he wants, but as far as I'm concerned he is a liar and a hypocrite until he publicly apologizes for saying that the United States is not worth fighting for.
As for the quote from Buchanan's book I really don't have a problem with it as I understand what he is saying. There has never been a perfect human society since the Garden of Eden so when one person cites an example of a better time someone else can always find fault with it. The period before the 60's revolutions is frequently berated for being sexist, racist, etc. and this is one so called arguement used against Buchanan's lament frequently. Funny, I have heard Thomas Sowell and Walter Williams both say how much better life in America was in this very time frame. Obviously they see some virtue worthy of longing for and I seriously doubt they wish for a return of Jim Crow. There may have been some good come out of the last 30-40 years but there has been much change for the worse. Buchanan is right, there are two America's culturally and one is dying off. I can't condemn someone for mourning the change.
About Novak being a Democrat - not sure how that is important but anyway I heard him explain that since he lives in DC and there is no chance Republican candidates could get elected he is a Democrat so his vote has some influence - he tries to keep the worst of 2 Dem's out of office.