In April, my colleague Zack Roth described Pat Buchanan as Washington's "crazy political uncle"--the guy who the establishment indulges, and even enjoys, despite a oeuvre that runs the gamut from aspersions on "New York Jewish money" to a rousing defense of the South Carolinian wise men who raised a confederate flag over the state capitol.

In order to get away with it though, his enablers have to overlook much of the work he does in the extremely right wing magazine Human Events. That's where "crazy Uncle Pat" often turns nasty.

"In her world," Buchanan wrote yesterday of Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor, "equal justice takes a back seat to tribal justice."

"How can any Republican senator vote to elevate to the Supreme Court a judge who, all her life, has believed in, preached and practiced race discrimination against white males, without endorsing the Obama-Sotomayor view that diversity trumps equal justice, and race-based justice should have its own seat on the high court?"

In Buchanan's world, all racial groups--foreign and domestic--are competing, in a zero sum game, for the largest slice of the American pie. So a woman who spends much of her life trying to improve the livelihoods of Latinos and Hispanics is, just by default, preaching and practicing race discrimination against white males.

But that's just his world. In Washington we know that's just crazy uncle Pat. "Don't mind all that--he's a really lovable guy once you get to know him."