I like Franklin Foer, and heartily approve of his selection as the next editor of The New Republic–my first workplace in DC, back in the days when Fred Barnes worked there. But I must protest Jack Shafer’s “Fun Frankie Foer Fact,” now on display at Slate.com: “He knows more about Russell Kirk and Albert Jay Nock than the combined Weekly Standard and National Review mastheads.”

Oh, give me a break. I was on the phone with Mrs. Kirk earlier this week. I’ve listened to her late husband tell ghost stories by candlelight at his home in Mecosta. I haven’t been on the Crunchy Con blog much, but I bet that the crunchers have invoked Kirk’s name more in the last week than TNR has in its history. I know much less about Jay Albert Nock, but I’ve read Our Enemy the State, and my copy happens to sit on the bookshelf next to The Conscience of a Conservative. Just a couple of weeks ago, WFB began this column with a reference to Nock. I hereby challenge Foer to run an article in one of his first issues that mentions either Kirk or Nock.