David Barton, the Republican establishment’s favorite amateur historian, claims in tax records reviewed by HuffPost to be something of an expert on African-American history...
It’s a curious claim for the Tea Party favorite, who has twice given speeches in front of white supremacist groups -- protesting later that he was ignorant of the groups' professed racist ideology.
Of course this self-proclaimed expert on African-American history once tried to get Thurgood Marshall removed from textbooks, because what did he ever accomplish compared to Clarence Thomas? You must be lazy and/or illiterate to proclaim otherwise.
This ridiculous information would be trivial except this charlatan is the ahistorian of choice for Republican Presidential candidates putting tri-corner hats in place of their consciences. From former candidate Mike Huckabee ("Americans should listen to him at gunpoint") to Michelle Bachmann (the founders ended slavery [or at least 3/5ths of it]) to Newt Gingrich and his spokesperson, most recently heard defending Newt with a press release ending with "...THIS IS SPARTA!".
Time for David Barton to be given a permanent "pundit's chair" on Meet the Press, I suppose.
[Cross-posted at Firedoglake]