Buchanan sees 'war' within conservatism

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Pat Buchanan speaks of American conservatism in the past tense.

"The conservative movement has passed into history," says the one-time White House aide, three-time presidential candidate, commentator and magazine publisher.

"It doesn't exist anymore as a unifying force," he says in an interview with The Washington Times. "There are still a lot of people who are conservative, but the movement is now broken up, crumbled, dismantled."

He is seated in his living room on a sunny afternoon. His wife, Shelley -- a member of the Nixon White House staff when he met and married her -- is upstairs in their Virginia home.

Mr. Buchanan, a former adviser to Presidents Nixon, Ford and Reagan, says conservatism "is at war with itself over foreign policy, over deficit hawks versus supply-siders."

Unnamed phonies, he suggests, have infiltrated the movement.

There are "a lot of people who call themselves conservative but who, on many issues, I just don't consider as conservative. They are big-government people."

Culture under attack

Conservatism, by most accounts, has dominated the Republican Party since 1964, when it nominated Barry Goldwater.