Associated Press
David Barton is probably not a household name in most parts of the country, but as the right's favorite pseudo-historian, he's a surprisingly influential character.
That is, at least he was.
A Republican activist in Texas and twice a guest on "The Daily Show," Barton has positioned himself as a wannabe American history scholar -- despite not having real academic credentials or training -- who sets out to prove the nation's founders wanted the United States to be a "Christian Nation." Unfortunately for Barton, his materials are filled with claims that don't stand up well to scrutiny.
For many conservatives, that hasn't made a difference. Barton is very popular on the Republican speakers' circuit, and Mike Huckabee and Glenn Beck, among others, rely heavily on Barton's "scholarship" as part of a larger culture war agenda. Sure, Barton's work has been discredited repeatedly, but primarily by liberals and "secularists" -- folks the right have been conditioned to ignore.
Unfortunately for Barton, however, the condemnations have broadened in a way that should do irreparable harm to his career. My friend and former colleague Rob Boston had this report yesterday.
[Barton] recently penned a book about Thomas Jefferson titled The Jefferson Lies. In the tome, Barton argues that for most of his life, Jefferson was an orthodox Christian who really didn't support church-state separation.
Unlike Barton's earlier books, The Jefferson Lies was not self-published. It even appeared briefly on The New York Times bestsellers list.
This proved to be too much for some of Barton's Christian critics, and they fired back.
Warren Throckmorton and Michael Coulter of Grove City College in Pennsylvania wrote a detailed fact-check, debunking Barton, but they weren't alone. Jon Fea, associate professor of American History and chair of the History Department at Messiah College, soon did the same, as did World magazine, a conservative Christian news outlet, which asked 10 conservative Christian professors to examine Barton's work, all of whom were critical.
Then a mainstream media outlet caught wind of this -- NPR aired a devastating story on Barton's deceptive and unsupported work yesterday.
By last night, Barton's own publisher announced that it has pulled the book, ceasing its publication and distribution due to Barton's inaccuracies.
This appears to be the sort of development that ends a career. In Barton's case, the collapse is long overdue.
Incidentally, Barton will be in Tampa later this month -- he serves as a representative to the GOP Platform Committee at the Republican National Convention.
Leave a Comment:
So the Christian community policed themselves. Commendable, no?
Sadly that other religion, Climate Change, won't do the same.
Re: #1
Sadly, some people don't understand what "science" is.
Climate Change is a theory. Anyone can question the theory and the data that has been used to develop the theory.
One person - Richard Muller - was convinced that the theory was incorrect.
Link to his NY Times Op-Ed: "The Conversion of a Climate-Change Skeptic"
He begins with this paragraph:
"CALL me a converted skeptic. Three years ago I identified problems in previous climate studies that, in my mind, threw doubt on the very existence of global warming. Last year, following an intensive research effort involving a dozen scientists, I concluded that global warming was real and that the prior estimates of the rate of warming were correct. I’m now going a step further: Humans are almost entirely the cause."
He ends with this paragraph {emphasis added}:
"Science is that narrow realm of knowledge that, in principle, is universally accepted. I embarked on this analysis to answer questions that, to my mind, had not been answered. I hope that the Berkeley Earth analysis will help settle the scientific debate regarding global warming and its human causes. Then comes the difficult part: agreeing across the political and diplomatic spectrum about what can and should be done."
Because I guess oncearepublican is busy...
Comments from shooter on a troll website:
http://moelane.com/2012/06/09/troll-hunting-101/
So the Christian Community is grasping at straws. Predictable, no?
Sadly, your claim that Climate Change is a religion is false.
Actually, it has and found consensus even amongst some of the most formidable skeptics like Dr. Muller, whose assessment supports the basics of human-caused climate change. Your question is more properly asked of the deniers under the thrall of the coal-funded propaganda.
Right. As if this will be more than a two year bump in the road in his lucrative career of writing big books full of total bull$#!+ full of stuff that wingnut theocrats think they already know.
Just like Ralph Reed's secret acceptance of cash payments from Jack Abramhoff to get the the Christian Coalition to lobby against gambling restrictions permanently disgraced him and drove him out of politics. Just like Jerome Corsi's career of telling demonstrable, proven and facially ridiculous lies has gotten him cut off the wingnut welfare gravy train. Just like Newt Gingrich's multiple scandales drove him from the political stage.
In a few months, a couple of years at the most, the people who tell people like you what to think will order you to send this little stumble down the Memory Hole and this guy will once again be raking in the cash that the ever credulous denizens of the right wing counterfactual alternate epistomologically closed universe eagerly rain upon their leading intellectual lights.
"The good thing about science is that's it's true whether or not you believe in it."
Neil deGrasse Tyson
Actually, Climate Change is obvious. It's CAUSE is a theory. It may be totally natural and occurs every 10,000 years or so, it might be an act of God, it may be the hydrofluorocarbons in our hairspray, it might be a race giant alien toddlers holding a giant magnifying glass over greenland melting the icepack looking for ants. The truth is that we would like to KNOW what causes it. The Human Race is like that, and when we stop wondering, we cease to be human.
Re: #1.7
You make a good point.
But in order to figure out if there is anything we can do about it we need to understand the root cause.
If there are things we can do then we need to DO.
If there is nothing we can do {might not be able to control those bratty alien toddlers) that we need to PREPARE.
If the world had any sense, the same thing would happen to -- i.e., the plug be pulled on -- supply-side economics and climate change denial. Hell, the whole conservative world view would be dead.
Wingnut World never existed in the world we live in, but only in the ideological fantasies of a willfully ignorant portion of the United States.
@shooter If you're a Goldberg disciple, won't you enlighten us about where fascism falls on the left-right spectrum? Goldberg engages in exactly, exactly the same kind of "Newspeak" and revisionism that Barton does.
Shooter 242 must obviously not live in the Midwest, where we had our worst drought ever recorded in US history... However, most of the years in the past decade have been record setting years in terms of drought and heat. There was a story 2 weeks ago that Greenland is 97% covered in ice melt. CO2 levels in the atmosphere are at unprecedented numbers, Acidity in the oceans are at unprecedented numbers, the first ever-recorded hurricane to strike South America happened 7 years ago, the Mississippi river valley had another record flooding season in 2008 after only 15 years [1993]. We need to stop diluting ourselves as to how and why climate change is occurring. It is our problem to deal with, we caused it, even skeptics are turning around to see that. The science is there. I don't have to rely on a global warming 'faith' to notice that my grass is dead in the yard and that the price of corn and beef is going to skyrocket because of this drought. It is in our backyards. I can't understand how a person can look at all the "true" facts and say it's rubbish.
That sure is a nice Christian screen name you've adopted. It adds to your unbiased credibility. As to the comment: Christians certainly should police themselves; it's obvious that they never tire of ranting about how they are persecuted by all the "dirty liberals". It's a shame that Jefferson isn't around today to kick some "Christian" butt.
"The good thing about science is it's true weather or not you believe in it."
Niel deGrasse Tyson (astro physicist)
Climate change is something I believe.
x-tianity not at all.
It's astonishing that Americans seem to think they are above all practical science, the obvious predicament we have created for ourselves and their own fragility in the face of their overwhelming stupidity and complicity in the destruction of our air, water and land. That climate change is happening and our pollution and pollutants are so obviously corrosive to nature as a whole is not to be debated in any way shape or form - especially if the motivation is to debunk it....well, that's just retarded. And those who would call it religion or crackpot or deem it a fallacy are nothing but criminally stupid.
You're just changing its diaper and feeding it.
Oh man, I made a typo....I hate it when I do that! Sometimes my nimble fingers go faster than my feeble brain. The correct quote is:
"The good thing about science is that it's true whether or not you believe in it."
My apologies to Dr. Tyson.
And if there are any typos in this one.......ditto!
Pooper242 shoots blanks again. You need to learn the definition of "scientific theory" you drooling moron.
How many hydrants are you going to mark today, little Pooper?
I admit that I haven't read through the other replies to you, but I found it prudent to note that the Republicans have begun to seriously chaff some of their supporters within religious circles. A few days ago the blog here reported about the Nuns on a Bus, a group of Catholic nuns who are traveling around, -in protest- of Rep. Ryan's budget proposal because of what it does to programs supporting the poor and minorities in this country. Ryan was spoken out against by many members of Georgetown University as he traveled there to defend his budget, not long after he received a letter from the Catholic Bishops Assoiciation condemning his budget as attacking the very Christian things he was trying to claim he represented.
They're getting fed up, and it's great to see when it comes out.
It APPEARS to be the sort of development that ends a career. In Barton's case, I'd guess the Koch brothers will buy the rights to the manuscript and not only re-release it in both dead-tree and e-book form, but use it as a premium for people to donate to causes they deem relevant.
see: Reed, Ralph.
How did Shooter divert the discussion to climate change? This post was a discussion of David Barton, an ideologue posing as an objective scholar, who was exposed as a biased ideologue and charlatan. I don't usually disagree with Rachel (because she's a lot smarter than me), but though Barton's exposure as a fraud is long overdue, I don't think it will end his career.
The ideologues and zealots who've supported him this far will say that the professors who exposed his charlatanism and the publisher who abandoned him are anti-christian persecutors. They see persecutions whenever people want them to be governed by the same laws and limits that the rest of us are. By that measure, NPR has long been equated with Satan. The exposure, transformed into persecution, will be touted as proof that the anti-christian persecutors are afraid of Barton because he speaks their deity's truth. They'll honor him and continue to sponsor his output. He'll continue to serve on the GOTP platform committee and participate in other GOTP activities. He'll be offered a professorship at Jerry Falwell's university (sic) or some similar institution of higer indoctrination.
His many supporters will see this as evidence that Satan is not only real, but is actively at work in our God Fearing Christian Nation.
Uhhh - yeah, riiiiigggght.
catdog12345 banned, re-reg of multiple accounter mom+dads basement.
It remains to be seen, however, if, after Barton's woodshedding by real historians, these criticism have any effect on Barton's audience: the folks who have decided to believe only what reinforces their 'conservatism', for whom truth is tribally decided. They don't care of real science, so why should they accept real history if it's politically out of step with their worldview?
These sheeple don't accept "reality" period, never mind science....
Was it Senator Moynihan who said you are entitled to your own opinions but not your own facts.
Conservatives and the right-wing social movement so prevalent in modern America seems to happily go about business with their own set of unique "facts." This is true of everything they get involved in, from politics to education to even what this nation's history is. Barton seems to be fitting the role of chief historian of the Tea Party quite nicely -- it has made him famous (he's on NPR, for crying out loud), wealthy, and has given him deep connections to the most influential Republican lawmakers and celebrities in the country. that everything he says is patently false and has no basis in reality doesn't seem to ruffle any feathers... Principled Progressive
Sadly, the willfully ignorant will continue to ignore facts and opt for whatever fantasy supports their desired picture. No wonder the GOP seeks to delete critical thinking from school curricula.
It is unkind of you to criticize NotRichard like this.
Thomas Nelson also publishes Heaven is For Real as a nonfiction title, so I'm not sure why they pulled the book.
attn: Editor
paragraph 10-- "Barton work" needs to be changed to "Barton's deceptive and unsupported work"
Nice article.
According to Mike Huckabee, this bozo will solve all our problems (from NPR story): "I almost wish that there would be like a simultaneous telecast," Huckabee said at a conference last year, "and all Americans will be forced, forced — at gunpoint, no less — to listen to every David Barton message. And I think our country will be better for it."
Wow.
I heard the same thing on the NPR broadcast and I was completely flabbergasted. I have no words for it either...
One is surprised when a fascist rips off his mask and exposes his fascist beliefs? Huckleberry's just another Confederate Traitor.
If Mr. Barton is as credible a historian as Mr. Gingrich, then their Weltanschauung includes a version of Armageddon they can both cash in and profit from !!! I would not dignify their scholarship by associating it with the right or with conservatism. Noone deserves to be associated with trash !!!
Except that the Right and the "Conservatives" all accept both of them as "credible." Once again you morons continue to live in your own WhackoWorld reality, that you are somehow intelligent, when all evidence is to the contrary.
If Barton is a credible historian, then I am a brain surgeon and I have an axe to prove it.
Barton had his 15 minutes of fame and probably made some money, so he's done what he set out to do.
A man who spews lies and ignorance...of course he's part of the GOP Platform Committee...
If only the liberals had TV personalities like they do on the right, we might see this made public on prime time MSNBC. But I guess that would take a few minutes away from complaining about why Mitt hasn't released his tax returns, and pillow-talk with Newt Gingrich. Don't get me wrong...I think reminding people reguarly about Mitt's taxes are important...as is voter suppression... but how bout mixing in a few other topics here and there once in awhile. Especially since the Do Nothing Congress is on vacation doing NOTHING at home.
I think the MSNBC host best at covering right wing nuttery and putting them in their place is Lawrence O'Donnell. I miss his Re-Write.
...says someone posting on Rachel Maddow's site?!
We have to keep in mind that many conservatives see the bible as inerrant, and so anyone who makes something up that works within that framework will get approval, while actual facts, which most of the time inconveniently disagree with the bible, can safely be dismissed. It is not a very academically sound way to look at the world, but we who see things differently/more objectively, should be aware of this. These people make rational decisions just like any other human being, but they have this bible-based worldview that is their basis for all reality.
The Bible is inerrant, but only my interpretation of it!
If ever you hit the nail on the head Old Vet, this was it. Congrats!!
Another Old Vet
Tsgt, USAF, Retired
No, they do not make rational decisions, since they operate from a position of intellectual irrationality, like all fascists.
All of this is an incestuous 'circle jerk' of books and fund raising letters designed to separate the Faithful from their money.
Democrats also do it, but the Right has turned it into an industry. (Google Regnery Publishing for an insight)
Wow, David Barton = Self-centered, revisionist douche-bag liar! Got it! And anyone who believes that the bible is inerrant in it's word of gawdliness (or even close to original) should read some Bart Ehrman for some "real" history lessons about the tome of tomes..
Wonder if he plays footsie with that other cutie, Rex Reed?
I think you mean Ralph, not the media critic, Rex. :-)
Jefferson wrote his own version of the Gospel, leaving out the fairy tale stuff.
Several of them were Deists. Look it up. I learned that early on in a real university. A real one, where I sat in real classes and learned from real professors. No mail-order quackery in my 350 hours of college credits. And why do you all continue to call Al a "reverend"? why not call him "da rev'? just saying, since we are discussing phony credentials.
The people who believe him and bought his book will still believe him even if he is proven to be a fraud. That is just the way they are.
@Benen I'm neither Christian nor a defender of Barton, who truly bears false witness against many. But 1) This post deserves a much more accurate and less tired header and 2) Barton had the courage to talk to liberals and for the most part held a respectful tone
Focus our liberal outrage on the Limbaughs and Cheneys who are irredeemable in action and betray even what they claim to believe. Barton does not commit that particular sin.
So people who are actively trying to make Americans stupider, for profit, should be treated respectfully if they're nice about it?
Why? Because the left "is better than that." We had the moral high ground in 2010, too, how'd that work out for us?
Say what you will about how awful a candidate Romney is (and he's getting worse), it seems to me that the harder the left has been hitting him, the better Obama's polling has become, from mind-numbingly close (with Romney occasionally taking a lead), to a lead that's almost outside of the margin of error. We can worry that we're turning into an Idiocracy, but while we wring our hands about it, Republicans are itching to make it a reality. So let's shut the stupid bastards down, and up, make sure they know better than to open their pieholes again unless they really have something of value to add to the national political discourse, and THEN we can talk about what we can do to improve the tone. Because when they win, America loses.
Barton shouldn't be allowed to spell check history books, much less write one. If smart people in a position to demand more from presumed historians are accepting that sad fact, awesome.
Being respectful includes not lying and lying repeatedly and badly. Mr. Jones, you are indeed defending a man who is a liar and who has never been respectful. Nice try though with your insistance about not being a Christian and a defender of Barton. Barton, if he is indeed a Christian as he claims, does betray everythign he supposedly believes in with every single lie he tells. Or don't you remember those bits in the bible where lies and liars are condemned, even if the liar claims they are lying for that god?
If you think Barton does any of that, you should take a listen to his Wallbuilders Show. You can check out the latest Barton baloney just about any day at Right Wing Watch.
David Barton is the Parson Weems of his generation.
Sort of like what happened to Ralph Reed's?
Maphi,
ASQ'er? Sometime we should have a go at linking "tampering" with our present messes - I have a two hour tape of the funnel experiment.
Barton - the problem is not that Barton lacks formal training - it is that he viewed "History" as a "product" to be manufactured and "marketed". He identified a target market - Christian Nationalists and Dominionists - and designed a "History" product based on the "America is a Christian Nation" theme - founded by Christians and for Christians governed by Biblical law over secular law - without regard for separation of church and state. Sadly, an amazing number of sincere Christians have "bought" his "product" - that "purchase" leads them down a path that does not follow the teachings of Jesus.
A study of Roger Williams, and the history of the Baptists and Congregationalists in Connecticut, totally undercut his fiction that the separation of church and state was about protecting religion from the evil secular state - it was about protecting minority religions from majority religions that had taken over the power of the state.
A study of Alexis de Tocqueville's Democracy in America, which Barton selectively quotes, also shows that separation of church and state was valued in the 1830's - and even considered to be a source of strength for the church. But not in Barton's "history" - not what his customers want to hear.
A simple reading of the ratification debates pretty much clears up any notion that the founders intended to create a Christian nation. One stop shopping.
@Adam Re: #27
Six-sigma Black Belt - through my company.
I had to look up the funnel experiment:
"The funnel experiment is a visual representation of a process. It shows that a process in control delivers the best results if left alone. The funnel experiment shows the adverse effects of tampering with a process through the four setting rules. The experiment was devised by Dr. W. Edwards Deming. It described in his famous book titled 'Out of the Crisis'.
The funnel experiment is a mechanical representation of many real world processes at our places of work. The aim of the experiment is to demonstrate the losses caused by tampering with these very same processes. "
By "tampering" I am assuming this is making a change because you think maybe it will work.
The key sentence appears to me to be "It shows that a process in control delivers the best results if left alone."
This translates to - "If it ain't broke don't fix it!"
----
The object of Six-Sigma is to take a process that is not in control - quality defects or inefficiencies (waste) - and analyze the C*&P!!! out of it.
Once you have a complete understanding - including all of factors that influence the outcome - then you have a shot at understanding the root cause of the defect.
Once you identify the root cause, you can come up with possible solutions - and then you analyze the C*&P!! out of the solutions.
Once you have identified the best solution, you do a test.
Then you analyze the C*&P!! out of the test results.
Then you document everything, explain everything, and get final approval for the change plan.
Then you implement and monitor to make sure that the process is now in control.
----
I can see little evidence that anything approaching this kind of process improvement is being done to deal with our big nation issues.
Take education:
The process is not "in control" - the process often fails and is very inefficient.
But rather than look at all of the factors, we seem to concentrate only on one - the Teacher - and ignore all of the other ones.
Maphi,
While it is true "… that a process in control delivers the best results if left alone" that’s not the point of the demonstration. You cannot make helpful changes to a process until you let it run (without “tampering”) and collect enough data to construct R-charts and x bar charts. R-charts ( or s-charts) of course tell you of the process variability while x-bar charts show if the process is centered. So the “sin” of tampering is to make “corrections” to a process you do not understand based on insufficient data (n=1) – which generally leads to a pattern of ever increasing variation. The pattern of the variation depends on the correction “rule” applied. Throw in the Red Bead experiment and I think we could show why politicians, if allowed to tinker, could make an even bigger mess of the educational system than they have.
Six Sigma is an excellent – however to get the most out of it consider becoming a Six Sigma “historian” and read some of the actual works of Deming, Taguchi, Ishikawa , and others whose work forms the historical foundation of Six Sigma and other current quality improvement programs. For posters not familiar with Six Sigma’s origins, Google Motorola and Six Sigma – it’s an interesting story of a company with multiple processes pursuing ridiculously small percentages of non-conforming product.
Is the Education process “out of control” – perhaps but consider “in-control” vs. “in-spec”.
Perhaps Education will appear as a topic in the near future and we can explore this without being as off topic as I have pushed us.
Adam_Selene
Throughout time people have written history to fit their beliefs. For example, it wasn't too long ago that American history books talked about how Columbus discovered America, even though there were millions of people already living here. Barton is just another example of a fake historian who finally gets revealed as a deceptive self-important charlatan.