You are seriously MISSING the key point. Buchanan is not talking about imaginary idealized America, (very DIFFERENT for the different American factions). He is talking about actual real America. The real America is expressed through the real actions in Iraq and through the radical changes/debate going in America intself.
Ponder carefuly on this one sentence "The president notwithstanding, Americans no longer agree on what is moral truth. For as someone said a few years back, there is a cultural war going on in this country a religious war. It is about who we are, what we believe and what we stand for as a people".
We should pass more laws...or win more hearts and minds?
You are exactly right. It is schizophrenic to complain about the cultural degradation in America and, in the next breath, talk about how great we are. The fact is, we are far less great than we used to be, precisely because of the abortion on demand, rampant promiscuity, and near pornographic popular culture that Buchanan writes about.
It doesn't take much "pondering" of this sentence to conclude that Pat, like anybody else who believes that there once was a time when all Americans agreed on what is moral truth, is an ignoramus.