JIM BUCHANAN, IN MEMORIAM: The Nobel Laureate economist and father of “public choice” economics, Jim Buchanan, would have been 98 today. Recently he’s been the target of a concentrated posthumous character assassination by Duke’s Nancy Maclean, who blames him for creating modern conservative ideology (and the all the ills that come with it) in her book Democracy in Chains. George Mason University historian Phil Magness has been relentlessly fact checking her sources at his blog, and the results aren’t pretty. Duke economist Mike Munger also did a detailed and devastating review. The left, of course, has characterized these careful critiques a “stealth attack on a liberal scholar,” because apparently there can be no other kind.

For those of you who just want to learn a little about one of the great economists, here’s Ryan Young’s obituary from 2013.