Diary - 31 May 2003 | The Spectator

To Paris to attend a convivium on the Continuing Revolution, presided over by Dr Thomas Fleming. Dr Who? Tom Fleming is editor of the monthly magazine Chronicles, based in Rockford, Illinois, and big chief of the palaeoconservative movement – though movement may be too grand a word to describe an engagingly barmy political army that has perhaps 20,000 followers in the US and fewer than 20 here. The reactionary and pacific – but not pacifist – palaeoconservatives (palaeos) are the sworn enemies of the hawkish and progressive neoconservatives (neocons). Shortly after Jacques Chirac declared that he would not support an American war against Iraq, Fleming wrote, ‘I respect and admire the French, who have been a far greater nation than we shall ever be, that is, if greatness means anything loftier than money and bombs.’ There was a fearful commotion. Such talk is considered treason by neocons, some of whom believe that enthusiasm for France makes one a Nazi sympathiser.