Another Conservative Calls Out David Barton’s History

Charles C. W. Cooke is the online editor for National Review Online and recently had this to say about self-styled historian David Barton.

David Barton is a fraud who makes up quotes completely, carefully misquotes/selectively quotes, and willfully rewrites American history. https://t.co/k40qrvZ0UE

— Charles C. W. Cooke (@charlescwcooke) December 17, 2017

Generally, an individual occupying such a position with NR is not known as a liberal or even a “liberal bastard” as Glenn Beck once said about David Barton’s critics. Thus, I was interested to see such plain language aimed at Mr. Barton, a darling of some within what is left of the conservative world.

The Twitter thread is filled with polite give and take wherein Mr. Cooke doesn’t give an inch, reminding his readers that once upon a time Mr. Barton once admitted using second hand quotes without providing proper context. Even then, Barton claimed he only did what those pagan academics did.

Here’s Barton himself admitting that a host of the quotes he’s been using are false, and then arguing that that’s okay because those to whom he attributed them would probably have said them given their other views. https://t.co/4sefCihqB6 https://t.co/tQDiLI2niq

— Charles C. W. Cooke (@charlescwcooke) December 17, 2017

Cooke here refers readers to Barton’s efforts to backtrack after it was discovered that some of the quotes in his book The Myth of Separation could not be located in primary sources. Barton said it was his idea to take those quotes out of his books. However, that hasn’t stopped him from using quotes that are not in primary sources or manipulating the words of certain founders to get the meaning he wants (click the links for a few illustrations).

One of the most egregious instances of academic deception was Barton’s effort to pass off a diploma mill doctorate from Life Christian University as an earned degree. He has never explained why he went to all the trouble to create a video for his Facebook and YouTube accounts, post it for one day, but then remove it the next day when I revealed that the “earned” doctorate he proudly pointed to was given to him by a school he never attended. I wonder if donor funds went to pay the fee for that piece of paper.