Yeah, we’re shocked. Shocked!
David Barton, the phony historian and head of Texas-based WallBuilders, is once again repeating the zombie lie that President Obama doesn’t mention God in his Thanksgiving proclamations.
That’s simply not true, as we pointed out last year.
Our friends at Right Wing Watch report, Barton addressed the issue again with Andrew Wommack on a program for “The Gospel Truth.” (Oh, the irony in that title, yes?) Here’s an excerpt from their discussion:
Barton: One of the unfortunate things, this is in the past several years, the Thanksgiving message out of the White House no longer even mentions God. When we give thanks, God’s not part of that.
Wommack: Part of that’s because of who is in the White House.
Barton: That’s a real problem. You check Thanksgiving proclamations of this president with the previous ones and it’s not the same.
Right Wing Watch has the audio clip and explains:
One thing that you realize after studying David Barton for any bit of time is that one key to his success is the fact that his audiences blindly accept everything he says without question, never bothering to actually verify anything he says.
And Barton is fully aware of this, which is why he has no qualms about lying to them time and again about things that a simple five minute Google search would prove to be false.
Yep, that’s about right. Barton apparently thinks his listeners either are gullible fools or are so blinded by hate that they simply don’t care what the truth is.
Even if you point out his lies to one of his followers, it doesn’t matter. They don’t care if he lies.
With a doctoral degree in U.S. history, and someone who values truth, I despair over the common misuse of history. Barton, and so many others, uses half-truths and lies for mean-spirited, destructive causes. TFN is correct, these charlatans rely on ignorance and hate of gullible people.
Barton just makes it all up. Either that or he has a severe reading disability and that he doesn’t know he has.
Here’s an excerpt of Obama’s 2013 Thanksgiving Day proclamation:
“This Thanksgiving Day, let us forge deeper connections with our loved ones. Let us extend our gratitude and our compassion. And let us lift each other up and recognize, in the oldest spirit of this tradition, that we rise or fall as one Nation, under God.”
Complete text of the proclamation here:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2013/11/26/presidential-proclamation-thanksgiving-day-2013
I always wonder how Obama-haters believe that he’s a Muslim AND an atheist. Isn’t it hard to be both at the same time?
That one is easy. To them Islam is not actually a religion (and thus not protected by the 1st amendment*) but an ideology disguised as one. So, being a Muslim and an atheist at the same time poses no problem. Same distorted logic applies when communism and fascism charges are aimed at somebody in the same sentence, fascism (to them) is not far right but far left (you know, National SOCIALISM), so both are the same as are social democrats (called social fascists by the commies between the World Wars). Pretzel logic at its finest.
*Admittedly, those same guys claim that there is no religion but their form of Kristianity(TM) and the 1st was crafted to exclusively protect that.
Barton knows his following.They are “gullible fools blinded by hate.” A dangerous adversary of democracy!
Barton doesn’t have any reading disabilities nor deficiencies in scholarship. Quite the opposite. He is careful and deliberate about what he does. The problem “we” have with Barton is that he’s not accountable to anybody. He’s not an elected official, he runs his own company of which he’s the head. So, unless he commits a crime, and I don’t think lying in public is a crime, then he can go about his merry way.
What “we” should do is laugh loud and hard at everything he says, ridicule him and pay him no attention.
I recall an interview with Jon Stewart during which Barton brazenly lied his head off, catching Stewart totally off guard. And Barton’s lies lay there on the table untouched. I think Stewart was totally unprepared for the level of prevarication and was unprepared to confront it.
That’s why Barton sticks to safe venues: Glenn Beck, churches, right-wingnut meetings and news outlets. He gets no challenge there. It would be so sweet, wouldn’t it, to have him spend an hour answering questions by Chris Radda who has researched extensively Barton’s claims. Alas, it will never happen.
Let’s face it: David Barton is a pathetic a-hole. And his fans are even worse.
special kind of pathology
Barton’s academic credential consists of a bachelor’s degree in Christian education from Oral Roberts University, which isn’t exactly shouting it from the rooftops.