You know back in the 90s when Pat Buchanan was launching failed bids for the presidency, the conservative politico was, in the minds of most folks I knew, synonymous with rabid, ugly, bigotry. But in the late oughts, the man who as late as 2006 still called Nixon’s race-baiting Southern Strategy a good idea, has rehabbed his image through regular appearances on MSNBC, where he is treated by the resident progressives like some batty-but-harmless uncle–a good guy who may be a little retro, but who for the most part simply holds a differing but valid political opinion.