Politico Fawns Over Barton

Last updated on: September 11, 2013 at 1:32 pm By Ed Brayton

Politico, which Charles Pierce hilariously and accurately calls “Tiger Beat on the Potomac,” has a fawning article about David Barton and his vast influence among social conservatives. The problem starts with the headline itself: “Evangelical historian remains key ally of right.” Barton is not a historian. In fact, among historians he is considered pretty much a complete fraud. To call him a historian is to give him credibility he not only has not earned but which is entirely contrary to reality.

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Barton: Science Will Prove the Bible True

Last updated on: September 10, 2013 at 1:38 pm By Ed Brayton

David Barton and Rick Green got all science-y on the Wallbuilders radio show last week. I’m sure you’ll be shocked to know that Barton is as dishonest and ignorant when discussing science as when he discusses history. And they said that eventually science will prove everything in the Bible true.

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Barton: Only Christians Can Be Good Scientists

Last updated on: September 7, 2013 at 11:01 am By Ed Brayton

David Barton seems to think that more than 90% of members of the National Academy of Sciences aren’t good scientists because they don’t “fear the lord.” Citing Proverbs 1:7, “the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge,” he declares:

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Jefferson, the Bible and Education

Last updated on: September 4, 2013 at 1:37 pm By Ed Brayton

Chuck Norris, who is on the advisory board of the National Council on Bible Curriculum in Public Schools, has been writing a series of columns on Thomas Jefferson, the Bible and education. Because he can’t find anything that Jefferson ever said about the Bible being a part of public education, he is forced, like his pal David Barton, to take little snippets out of context and distort them. To wit:

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Barton Claims Atheism is a Religion

Last updated on: September 2, 2013 at 9:03 am By Ed Brayton

David Barton hosted Rep. John Fleming, the congressman who submitted the amendment barring the military from appointing humanist chaplains, on his radio show and claimed that atheism is a religion and should be subject to separation of church and state (you know, the one he says doesn’t exist).

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Does Beck Even Read The Blaze?

Last updated on: August 29, 2013 at 10:06 am By Ed Brayton

For the third time, Right Wing Watch has caught a contradiction between what is said on Glenn Beck’s TV show and what it says on his website. This time it came from David Barton, who guest hosted for Beck and repeated this suddenly popular new meme on the right that the Common Core standards will allow kids to say that 3×4 = 11. A dishonestly edited video is rocketing around the right wing blogosphere on this and Barton is pushing it as hard as he can. But Beck’s own website has already debunked this:

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Glenn Beck Explains the History of Satan

Last updated on: August 1, 2013 at 1:10 pm By Ed Brayton

During Glenn Beck’s three day wingnutapalooza in Salt Lake City over the 4th of July, the one that included his bizarre “man in the moon” show, he also took groups of contributors on a tour of a makeshift museum he and David Barton put together. And he told them that all of human history can be explained as Satan trying to destroy God’s chosen people because that will mean God won’t be God anymore. Because that totally makes sense.

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Barton and Lapin: So Stupid Together

Last updated on: July 29, 2013 at 2:44 pm By Ed Brayton

Glenn Beck let David Barton and Rabbi Daniel Lapin take over his show and rant incoherently about same-sex marriage. Barton told another lie about Jefferson writing a law enforcing the Biblical definition of marriage, while Lapin said that people staying single leads to tyranny.

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Barton Revises History of His Own Revisionism

Last updated on: July 26, 2013 at 2:40 pm By Ed Brayton

One year ago, publisher Thomas Nelson pulled David Barton’s aptly titled book The Jefferson Lies for being wildly inaccurate. But Barton wants you to know it was only a few bad apples complaining about it. On Steve Deace’s radio show he said:

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Barton: Beck Isn’t Really Mormon

Last updated on: July 26, 2013 at 11:06 am By Ed Brayton

David Barton has taken some heat from some fundies for his work with Glenn Beck because Beck is a Mormon, but he told Steve Deace recently that Beck isn’t really a Mormon. He’s really a Christian, you see, but he calls himself a Mormon — and does whole shows defending the truth of Mormonism, by the way — because he’s so loyal to them.

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The Bible, the American Revolution and the Constitution

Last updated on: July 17, 2013 at 2:00 pm By Ed Brayton

The Christian Post has an article about a new book by Vanderbilt University divinity professor James Byrd called Sacred Scripture, Sacred War: The Bible and the American Revolution. In it, he correctly argues that Biblical arguments were commonly used to persuade the colonists to support the revolutionary war:

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Why School Boards Matter

Last updated on: July 12, 2013 at 10:27 am By Ed Brayton

In 2007 I gave a talk that aired on C-SPAN about the need for scientifically literate people to run for school boards to counter the influence of the religious right, which has focused on dominating local elected bodies for the last couple decades. I could have specified constitutionally literate as well. Americans United tells the story of what is going on in Springboro, Ohio:

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