and a Neocon. The Neocon complained that the Paleocon made an "insensitive remark" about AIDS and said, "How can you say that, when we all have so many close friends who have been struck down by this terrible disease?" The Paleo replied, Close friends?' I don't know anyone who has AIDS. I don't know anyone who knows anyone who has AIDS." After that, the Neocon stopped speaking to the Paleocon. March 2003: The Crossfire David Frum of National Review and Pat Buchanan of The American Conservative exchanged harsh words just before the Iraq War began. Buchanan wrote that Neocons influence the U.S. government toward the pursuit of global empire and the benefit of pro-Israel hawks. Frum charged that Paleocons have become unpatriotic, racist, and antisemitic. He also hinted that Paleocons were subversives, claiming they "made common cause with" international Islamists and "deny and excuse terror." (Though a year later, National Review founder William F. Buckley Jr. described The American Conservative as "highly literate" and "wonderfully well edited.") In his article, Buchanan wrote: This is a time for truth. For America is about to make a momentous decision: whether to launch a series of wars in the Middle East that could ignite the Clash of Civilizations against which Harvard professor Samuel Huntington has warned, a war we believe would be a tragedy and a disaster for this Republic. To avert this war, to answer the Neocon smears, we ask that our readers review their agenda as stated in their words. Sunlight is the best disinfectant. As Al Smith used to say, "Nothing un-American can live in the sunlight." Frum wrote that: Having quickly decided that the War on Terror was a Jewish war, the Paleos equally swiftly concluded that they wanted no part of it. It's odd: 9/11 actually vindicated some of the things that the Paleos had been arguing, particularly about immigration and national cohesion. But the Paleos were in no mood to press their case. Instead, they plunged into apologetics for the enemy and wishful defeatism. Beyond Paleo and Neocons In 2003, Paleocon Clyde Wilson speculated that their critique of this "nasty little cabal" might be "belated and repetitive—a diversion from more fundamental problems," namely "a fatal defect of national character." He wrote that the Neocons are courtiers who saw "the chance presented by the vast gaping vacuum of ideas and principles that is the Republican Party." He concluded