A conservative saying positive things about super lefty Pete Seeger might well wreck the Internet. Pete, who lived a simple life chopping wood to heat his home almost to the day he died, would be amused by that. 

But Pete had influence on both left and right through his music – spending more decades than God grants most of us singing folk songs.

One Washington Post profile of him 20 years ago called him “America's Best-Loved Commie.” But that was from another era when left and right at least admitted they had some things in common.