<p>WHEN THE FIRST ISSUE of The American Conservative, the new weekly edited by Patrick J. Buchanan, recently hit the newsstand, readers might have been excused for wondering if they had accidentally picked up The Nation. Buchanan's magazine, which he co-edits with the journalist Taki Theodoracopulos, resembles its left-liberal counterpart in appearance and is printed on the same cheap newsprint. Even more remarkably, much of The American Conservative's contents could just as easily have appeared in the flagship publication of America's left.</p>