On Thursday's episode of Glenn Beck's web-based GBTV show, Beck's guest was none other than pseudo-historian David Barton, who, as everybody knows by now, just got his bestselling book The Jefferson Lies pulled by Christian publisher Thomas Nelson. Barton was on Beck's show to refute the critics and save face with his followers. (And Beck will be publishing the next edition of Barton's Jefferson book through his publishing arm.)
One of the lies that Barton has been telling for a very long time in his presentation and TV appearances is that Thomas Jefferson signed his presidential documents not just "in the year of our Lord," but "in the year of our Lord Christ."
For many years, Barton had claimed to have in his possession a document that proved that Jefferson signed his documents, but he had never revealed in his books or on his website exactly what this mysterious document was. I knew that it had to be some sort of document written by someone else that Jefferson had merely signed, but all I could do was guess at what it might be until October 2008, when I actually attended on of Barton's presentations. At that presentation, Barton showed a corner of the document on the big TV screen, but not enough to tell what it was.
A few months after I attended his presentation, David Barton decided to bash me on his radio show, Wallbuilders LIVE! (which is actually pre-recorded; seriously, this guy can't even give his radio show an honest name). At the October 2008 presentation that I attended, I had gone up to Barton and given him a copy of my 2006 book Liars For Jesus: The Religious Right's Alternate Version of American History, a book that debunks dozens of the lies from his earlier books and videos. In January 2009, he decided to come after me on his radio show, where he not only lied about my book, but lied about our encounter at his presentation (which was pretty dumb considering he knew that I had the whole encounter on video, since my friend with the video camera had made no attempt to hide that we were filming it). But the details of all that are unimportant now, except for the fact that a couple of months later I decided to make a series of videos on YouTube showing not only that Barton's version of what occurred at his 2008 presentation was not true, but debunking a whole bunch of the lies he had told in the presentation itself. I put these videos on YouTube in March 2009.
Since I mentioned this mystery document in my video series, and said that Barton seemed to be deliberately trying to keep anyone from seeing what it was, guess what happened - an image of the ships' papers document suddenly appeared on Barton's website. Now I finally knew what Barton's mysterious "in the year of our Lord Christ" Jefferson document was. This was a pre-printed form that ships leaving America had to carry (sometimes also referred to as a passport or a sea letter) that was printed by the hundreds, if not thousands. Each president signed a big stack of these forms in advance to be distributed to the all the ports, where they would be filled out as needed by port officials.
Fast forward to 2010 when Barton was appearing as a regular guest on Beck's old show on FOX. I started making a series of videos that I called the "No, Mr. Beck ..." series, each video debunking a different lie that Barton had told on Beck's show, and posting them here on HuffPost and in a few other places. One of these videos was titled "No, Mr. Beck, Jefferson Did Not Date His Documents 'In the Year of Our Lord Christ.'" (If you can't or don't want to watch the video, I included a transcription of it when I first posted it back in June 2010.)
(The rest of the "No, Mr. Beck ..." series videos can be found on the homepage of my website if anybody wants to watch the rest of them.)
Now, fast forward to April 2012. Barton's book The Jefferson Lies is published, and, of course, the Jefferson ships' papers lie that I had debunked way back in 2009 is in the book.
In May 2012, someone else who's been writing some blog posts about Barton for the past couple of years puts out a little book refuting The Jefferson Lies, and includes a bunch of the lies that I had debunked in my book and my videos between 2006 and 2010. Among these was the one about the ships' papers. This book refuting Barton's book came out in May 2012, just a month after Barton's book was released. (I'm also writing a book debunking The Jefferson Lies, but mine isn't quite finished yet because I'm including a bunch of brand new, never used before lies that Barton came up for his new book and had to do some research to debunk those new ones.)
Now it's August 2012, and Barton's book has been pulled by it's publisher. Barton needs to save face with his believers, and is quite mind-bogglingly managing to do just that. They all seem to still believe him, and lots of them are praying for him. Barton is well on his way to coming out of this whole thing virtually unscathed.
Now, Barton's face saving certainly would not be complete without an appearance on his pal Glenn Beck's show, which is where we get to the reason for the title of my post. You've probably already forgot what the tile was, right? OK... so you don't have to scroll all the way back up to the top and lose your place, it was "David Barton Tells Glenn Beck More Obvious Lie to Refute Debunking of Less Obvious Lie."
So, what was this more obvious lie that Barton told on Beck's show? Watch this clip from the show, where Barton is attempting to refute the debunking of his ships' papers lie, and you'll hear it.
Did any of you history buffs catch it? Barton's example of Jefferson not bowing to another government entity when he was president was that he released the men imprisoned under the Sedition Act, even though it was a federal law that the courts had upheld! Barton may lack honesty, but he certainly has some cojones! This isn't a lie about some obscure document like his ships' papers lie that he got away with for years by simply not revealing exactly what the document was. This guy actually thinks he's going to get away with lying about the freakin' Alien and Sedition Acts, something that anyone who has studied American history in even the slightest depth would know all about.
Here's a transcription of what Barton said:
Jefferson has a long record of not doing presidential things that he disagrees with. The Alien and Sedition Acts were a federally passed law. We have 24 guys sitting in jail because the courts enforced it. Jefferson disagreed with it. He took all 24 out of jail. He refused to enforce the law. Anything he disagrees with he doesn't do. If he had trouble with that [the way the ships' papers were dated], it's a government printer.
By the time that Jefferson took office, the Sedition Act had expired. Jefferson, of course, opposed this act, but this had nothing to do with him freeing anybody who was imprisoned under it. The Sedition Act had been passed by Jefferson's Federalist political rivals and signed by John Adams in 1798 to keep Jefferson's Republican political supporters from writing anything bad about the Federalist Adams administration! The act's expiration date was March 3, 1801, the last day before the end of Adams's term as president. He didn't have to stand up to anyone to free any prisoners!
And there weren't even 24 prisoners even when there actually were prisoners. There were only 10 men who were even convicted under the act to begin with, and even fewer who were actually put in jail, with the longest sentence being eighteen months, and the rest being much shorter than that. I'm pretty sure that James Callender, who would later turn on Jefferson and publish the Sally Hemings story, was the only one actually still in jail when the act expired on March 3, 1801. The rest had been freed long before Jefferson became president.
I'm sure that a few more whoppers await us as Barton continues to weasel out of this little predicament he's gotten himself into, particularly since this was only the first of what will be several appearances on Glenn Beck's show. I can't wait to see what he comes up with next!