There’s an old story about three libertarians — a historian, a philosopher, and an economist — discussing how much they all admire Murray Rothbard. (I’m forgetting some of the details, but I think the economist was David Friedman.) The historian says he loves Rothbard on philosophy and economics, but that his understanding of history falls short. The philosopher says that, though he loves most of Rothbard’s work, he has some problems with Rothbard’s philosophical writings. The economist adds that, truth be told, he’s not a big fan of Rothbard’s economic writings.

There’s been a multi-blog debate going on over Jeffery Hart’s essay on American conservatism in yesterday’s Wall Street Journal, and it’s gone something like that. Hart gets so many things not-quite-right that the critiques of his essay make up a sort of mini-course in conservative political thought. Happily, Marc Comtois has collected most of them in one place.