When our colleague Peter Montgomery was on "The Last Word" with Lawrence O'Donnell earlier this week talking about our new report on David Barton, one of the questions O'Donnell asked was what influence Barton would have now that Glenn Beck's Fox program is going off the air.
As Peter explained, Barton might seem like some fringe figure that only Glenn Beck fans care about, but the truth is that Barton's influence is much deeper than that, as he is widely believed to be one of America's greatest historians by leaders in the Religious Right movement and GOP presidential hopefuls alike.
In fact, attributing Barton's influence to his ties with Glenn Beck misrepresents the extent of Barton's reach because it is clear that Beck pick-up on Barton's work because he was so prominent among the Religious Right. We wrote our first report about Barton back in 2006.
And just to demonstrate that point, let us point out that Beck did not team up with Barton until early 2010 and didn't have him on his television program for the first time until April of that year.
But back in August of 2009, Mike Huckabee hosted him on his Fox television program where he gushed over Barton's "expertise" and gave him free reign to spread his pseudo-history:
Beck may have made Barton slightly more famous and probably more wealthy, but he has been spreading his lies for years and will continue to do so long after Glenn Beck is gone.
