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Ahhhh, but Buchanan did not discover and embrace the heresies of Raimondo on foreign non-policy and military non-war until much later on. I have never heard of Meese or Watt embracing either ever nor William Casey, whatever Woodward may have claimed. In fact, the bishop of Rockville Centre insulted the widow Casey at the funeral for the fact that the ultra-Catholic Bill Casey was not an admirer of the Sandanistas and, worse (lions and tigers and bears, oh my!), DID something about it.

I am pinging ninenot, a semi-close neighbor of good sense standing a bit between me and thee on the paleo matter and very much an admirer of PJB.

As David Frum's article pointed out so well, the origin of the paleos is in the disgruntled realization of the socially eccentric and politically unsophisticated romantic blood and soil types that Reagan really was not going to hire and credential them. In 1986 at a Philadephia Society or Mont Pelerin Society meeting they announced their discovery that they, and not the consevative movement or Reagan admnistration were the REAL conservatives, that Israel had hijacked conservatism along with about eight elderly New York refugees from McGovern's takeover of the DemoParty and that henceforth they would deal with the phonies who elected Reagan by hiding their heads in the sand and denying our (movement conservatives') existence.

More recently, one local example known well to me and thee in teaching a course entitled Real American History (which in its post-1900 portion is real American fantasy) refused to even cover the Reagan Administration (the pain, the horror!) doing literature such as the Legend of Sleepy Hollow instead. These folks are trying to redefine Reagan who can no longer defend himself as a "paleo whatever". When John Flynn, Charles Lindbergh (as a politico) and Garrett Garrett drank at the primeval wading pools of old, Reagan was an avid and active supporter of FDR and no more an ancestral Republican green-eyeshaded bean counter than me or at least half of thee. He was no isolationist either at any stage of ideology or career.

As conservatives go, Ronaldus Maximus was the master. He was the gold standard (so to speak). He was unbeatable. He was a social normalist. He was not a crank like that "history" teacher and neither Serbia nor Montenegro counted in his foreign policy considerations as did Nicaragua or scrapping arms control proposals or being aggressive towards the soviets or keeping chicoms from thinking bad thoughts. One flaw was free trade but no one is perfect any more.

All that having been said, you do, of course, merit, for lifetime achievement in spite of our few differences, a tip of the antlers which is hereby respectfully tendered since you can be distinguished in many ways from our acquaintances at the institute.

Ahhhh, but Buchanan did not discover and embrace the heresies of Raimondo on foreign non-policy and military non-war until much later on.
First off, Raimondo is not the progenitor of Buchanan's position, and you know it. Secondly, Buchanan, on foreign policy, has not changed as much as you implied. It is not hard to make a distinction between Soviet Communist territories which are expansionistic by definition, ESPECIALLY those in the Western Hemisphere, and little hornets' nests in the Middle East, who NOBODY (but a handful of neo-cons) thought of going after until after 9/11. Buchanan was never one of these, "You vill haf democracee and ve vill tell you how you are to doo it" types. Reagan did cut and run in Lebanon when it was clear our presence there was serving no useful purpose, and all we were doing was exposing our men for no good reason. In any event, priorities are called for. Don't tell me to be gung ho in a war against Iraq, when Communist China has publicly stated that they are willing to nuke L.A. if we stop them from enslaving Taiwan. I could understand the argument that this is not a fight we can fight and win right now without unacceptable losses. What I cannot understand is putting OUR economy under THEIR control (they could turn our Just-In-Time consumer based economy inside out by simply nationalizing all their businesses tomorrow, or giving them to politically favored sons.) through our trade policies. On the Hit Parade of rogue nations that actually are a direct threat as a nation to the U.S., Iraq wasn't even on the radar. That is whether they had WMD or not. Finally, Frum has been caught in so many lies and embellishments that I do not believe anything that the "fired one" says. Reagan was an avid and active supporter of FDR and no more an ancestral Republican green-eyeshaded bean counter than me or at least half of thee.
It is the neo's who (for the most part) get the warm fuzzies or a case of "big-tent-itis" whenever someone is a fiscal conservative/social moderate. Buchanan has never particularly been a bean counter, and paleo's tend to consider principles over numbers running. If a neo-conservative is a liberal who got mugged, the paleo-conservative is a fellow who decided from the beginning that he did not want ANYbody to be mugged. Buchanan (as an example of Paleo) has a genuine deep-rooted sympathy for the working man that FDR could fake, I suppose. The David Frums of the world do not have it.

The Bush doctrine seems to be a strange amalgam of Wilsonism and TRism mized together. I am not comfortable with it, and never will be. Empire does not suit America.