Regarding this nugget from Joe H., Pat Buchanan has been a very vocal critic of the Bush administration for some time. Few years back he wrote “Where The Right Went Wrong,” which I read on vacation in ‘06; the critiques of how the administration approached the war in Iraq might have been made on Daily Kos (and in fact WERE made on Daily Kos).

Which is to say that while we like to draw our bright dividing lines, left vs. right, there are subdivisions on both sides of the fence, and paleoconservatives like Buchanan have long believed Bush to be a disaster, that all that’s come to pass would to come to pass. And it’s that strain of conservatism I find most interesting, most intellectually honest, because it’s not about bandwagon jumping; it’s predicated on more than just hatred of liberals and belligerent nationalism.

These past few years, the Bush years, have not discredited conservatism per se, but rather discredited conservatism as practiced by the conservative movement, which in the process of turning into a mass movement, a populist movement, diluted and undermined the message. In order to appeal to a broader group conservatism had to embrace the concept of larger government; in order to capitalize politically upon the fear that reigned in the country after 9/11 conservatism had to suddenly embrace “nation building,” which it had never done before. Now your most fervent nation builders are self-identified movement conservatives; that’s anathema to paleoconservatives like Buchanan, who never stopped believing in its folly despite 9/11.