Tag: david Barton

Glenn Beck Wants $20 to Tell You What You Can Find Out Free

Mr. Beck is certainly a showman, and he has a big show planned for July 22, 2014.
We Will Not Conform is a live telecast to movie theaters around the country on the evils of common core educational standards. Despite being championed initially by conservatives like Mike Huckabee, Common Core has become associated with nearly everything evil, thanks, more often than not, to Mr. Huckabee’s allies in the conservative camp.
In this Hannity segment (click for video), Beck describes the upcoming event. According to Beck on Hannity’s show, common core is about control and manipulation and making money. As an aside, with a $20 ticket price, Beck’s effort to fight against common core seems to be about making money. In contrast to Beck’s claim, Huckabee says that the common core conservatives love to hate is not what the creators of common core had in mind. Huckabee said in February:

I’m convinced that the term Common Core needs to disappear from the lexicon of education policy. It’s a toxic term because it’s come to mean things that most of us can’t stomach, like top-down federal intrusion into the local schools where you live. But Common Core as it was designed had nothing to do with the federal government. It was conceived and controlled by elected governors and state school chiefs to keep the federal hands from interfering. It only dealt with 2 subjects, math and English, and in those 2 subjects, established only state-initiated standards in those subjects, and intentionally did not write or even suggest curriculum. It set voluntary goals—VOLUNTARY goals—controlled by local school boards. Unfortunately, the locally controlled and very simple creation of standards in math and English, created so that students would be measured by comparable regardless of geography has been hijacked by those who took the label Common Core and applied it to curriculum, subjects other than math and English, and even unrelated things as personal data collection. As a result, Common Core as a brand is dead and hopefully the perversions of it will die as well.

Thus, Beck’s (and David Barton’s) use of the label common core only adds to the confusion. I imagine Beck’s cadre of faux experts will scare people about public schools, but don’t expect to come out of the event enlightened. Beck’s misuse of history, and of course David Barton’s many documented historical misadventures disqualify them right off the bat. If you want to get scared about education, just go on You Tube and look up common core. You’ll be just as confused but it won’t cost you $20.

Underneath it all, there is more to this than opposition to standards, and questionable claims about making all kids the same.

David Barton Back in Good Graces of Family Research Council

After removing the Capitol Tour video from You Tube due to historical errors in May 2013, the Family Research Council again had David Barton conduct the Capitol Tour for pastors during the Watchmen on the Wall conference. According to Time Magazine, David Barton led the spiritual heritage tour and covered at least some of the same ground as in the video FRC’s V.P. Kenyn Cureton removed from You Tube in 2013.
Last year, FRC told me that Barton was not going to conduct the tour in favor of Kenyn Cureton.
Politico reported on Barton’s resurgence last year and he has now come full circle with FRC. Despite the fact that FRC removed the video riddled with errors and Focus on the Family attempted to cover up the fact that they also had to edit Barton’s videos to get them a little closer to accurate, Barton continues to be viewed as an expert on American history by a certain segment of the Christian right.
According to Time, the conference participants talked much about taking the country back to God. Even if creating a Christian nation was possible or virtuous, one cannot expect success when the foundation of the effort is built on half-truths and error.  Unless Barton has had a major change of course, those pastors are now ill-prepared to engage in intelligent dialogue with their ideological opponents. Many Christian historians would have been willing to discuss the full story with those pastors, but instead FRC chose someone the FRC and other Christian groups have admitted traffics in a faulty narrative.  I am never more ashamed of my community when perceived political usefulness trumps truth and accuracy.

David Barton Continues to Spin The Jefferson Lies in Florida and Ohio

According to this Florida Today report, David Barton is slated to speak at the Space Coast Prayer Breakfast in Melbourne, FL this Thursday.
The reporter provided the details of the event and noted that Thomas Nelson pulled from publication Barton’s book The Jefferson Lies. Barton continues to spin the situation as being the result of “two professors.”

Barton’s most recent book, “The Jefferson Lie, Exposing the Myths You’ve Always Believed,” was withdrawn by publisher Thomas Nelson because of factual errors, but will return.
“Thomas Nelson withdrew the book after two professors criticized it. But it’s coming back out at some point. You can’t just get rid of history simply because you don’t like it.”

While Getting Jefferson Right: Fact Checking Claims about Our Third President was used by Thomas Nelson as a resource, it is beyond dispute that The Jefferson Lies was widely criticized by academic historians, both Christian and otherwise.  The book was voted Least Credible History Book in Print by the readers of the History News Network and garnered many critical reviews from real historians. In prior posts, I debunked Barton’s “two professors” claim.
The real story is why Barton continues to be invited to speak about the founding era when he has been so widely discredited as an authority on the subject.
Tonight, Barton speaks at Urbana University in Ohio.
 

Should Christian Scholars be Watchdogs? My Interview with The Pietist Schoolman on David Barton

Grace College history professor Jared Burkholder today published an interview with me on fact checking David Barton’s claims.
Go check it out. Being an historian, Burkholder’s questions were thoughtful and included some analysis of his own. For instance:

Jared: In my mind, Barton’s problem is a methodological one rather than simply getting things wrong. And often the issue is that his faulty approach leads to misguided interpretive conclusions. Simply put, Barton does not engage in the critical study of history. Historians are trained to be critical, which means they must be ruthless questioners and skeptics – especially of themselves. They seek to maintain a certain amount of distance between themselves and the events they narrate so the conclusions are as objective as possible. Historians are expected to make arguments, or course, but one’s judgment is supposed to be free from bias. This is not to say that this is a perfect process; perceptive readers can usually detect at least some bias in all sorts of historical writing. Sometimes we even categorize historians in one school of thought or another based on their bias. But sometimes it becomes apparent that a writer’s presuppositions or a particular political or religious agenda is overtaking the careful process of questioning that makes for solid and useful historical writing. This is certainly the case with Barton. Warren, would you agree?  If you could boil it down to a few sentences, what is the crux of the matter regarding Barton’s historical work? In other words, is there a root issue, which in your opinion, leads to “bad history?”

You can read my answer and the rest of our exchange at the Pietist Schoolman.

David Barton Again Falsely Claims Obama Administration Has Not Prosecuted Child Pornography

Repeating a false claim he made in 2011, David Barton told his Wallbuilders audience yesterday that the Obama Administration has not prosecuted any child pornography cases. In contrast, Opposing Views links to six different FBI cases in just the last week (e.g., this MS case).
According to World Magazine, the Obama administration has been less than active on adult cases but has been vigorous in prosecuting cases involving children.  The Department of Justice has placed emphasis on enforcement and has a special task force devoted to child protection. A quick review of the press releases for the Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section of the DOJ’s website reveals numerous actions by the Obama administration to prosecute crimes involving children (see 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013 and 2014). A search of the FBI website reveals numerous actions as well.
Barton often stretches the truth when it comes to history and public policy, but this claim is a complete falsehood. In addition to misleading his listeners, Barton owes an apology to the hard working men and women who work for the FBI, the DOJ and other federal agencies who daily try to make the world a little safer for kids.