Earlier today, Media Matters' Terry Krepel posted about the latest from Chris Rodda, senior research director for the Military Religious Freedom Foundation and author of Liars For Jesus: The Religious Right's Alternate Version of American History.
Previously, we'd posted about the first installment of Rodda's thoughtful debunking of the dynamic dunces -- Fox News host Glenn Beck and “Christian nationalist pseudo-historian” David Barton -- that the first Bible printed in America was printed by Congress.
Somehow, however, we skipped Rodda's second debunking installment that tackled “an 1809 letter” butchered by Barton and promoted by Beck “to make it appear that” John Adams thought all governments “must be administered by the Holy Ghost in order to be legitimate.” Rodda writes:
On Beck's show, Barton also incorporated his other lie about this letter, claiming that this was the letter that magically reunited Jefferson and Adams, who had been on the outs since Jefferson got elected president in 1800. Why does Barton do this? Because it allows him to combine two completely unrelated parts of Adams's letter into a claim that it was really God, working through his “prophet” Benjamin Rush, who restored the friendship between Adams and Jefferson.
Rodda provides the following video that annihilates Beck and Barton's historical revisionism:
Previously: