Pearl Harbor only makes the isolationist case if all acts or threats of destruction from abroad are our fault, the fruit of our evil imperialism, which we could easily avoid by acting decently. Isolationists are forced by the logic of their position to insist that whatever attacks are mounted against America, they are always our fault. Indeed, they really have to argue that no attack could ever be made on America except as a reaction to American wrongdoing abroad. Otherwise the case for isolationism falls down in little pieces. The isolationist case is intrinsically anti-American.
Paleos all seem to hate the nation that actually exists, and love only the idea that exists in their own heads. As Buchanan reportedly says, the bad guys ''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.'' Quoted here.
Note: I am not endorsing the author or the New York Times or the review. Dismissive comments about any of these will be ignored, and prove nothing - the only thing I'm interested in is the quotation. If the reviewer has misquoted or distorted Buchanan, I would be interested to have some Death of the West buff post the entire paragraph in which these lines appear, along with the paragraphs preceding and following. That should give the general Freeper enough context to decide.