Today's New York Times profile of Christian right propagandist David Barton reports on how the self-styled historian wields a great deal of influence in conservative and Christian nationalist circles, spreading his gospel that the U.S. was founded on Christian principles.

The Times' Erik Eckholm reports that "many historians call his research flawed" and that "liberal organizations are raising the alarm over what they say are Mr. Barton's dangerous distortions," and he quotes Baylor University critic Derek H. Davis, who says that Barton's work includes "a lot of distortions, half-truths and twisted history."

So Eckholm tells us that Barton has critics who say he generally mangles history, but what is true? This is where journalism and the professional judgment it entails  should intervene, but Eckholm is content to act the court stenographer, simply recording what the various parties say, rather than informing readers about the evidence for the conflicting views.

Nor is any mention made of Barton's controversial role in the creation of public school history curricula and text books, or past links with extremist groups, including the Christian Reconstructionist movement and the racist and anti-Semitic Christian Identity sect (Church & State, 4/93).

It's not that there's a shortage of critical work on Barton. Online reports about his links to extremists are widely available, as are any number of solid factual debunkings of his historical claims. Indeed, you can even read about how Barton himself conceded that a dozen quotes he'd attributed to U.S.  founders and other prominent political figures were either false or unverifiable. For instance, the Constitution's co-author and deist James Madison never said, as Barton claimed:

We have staked the whole future of American civilization, nor [sic] upon the power of government, far from it. We have staked the future of all of our political institutions upon the capacity of each and all of us to govern ourselves ... according to the Ten Commandments of God.

Wouldn't Times readers be better served to know not just that Barton's detractors exist, but that their charges are backed by abundant evidence? And wouldn't it also be important for Americans to know that such a careless and extreme "historian" is playing an influential role in creating public school history curricula and text books that their children are using in school?

By reporting on a conservative icon without ferreting out the facts, the Times can say they covered the issue without incurring the right's anger. It's a Times formula last noted by Julie Hollar about the Times profile of anti-immigrant activist John Tanton.

Corrected version, 5/11/11--providing fuller version of Barton's "Madison" quote.

The Sunday New York Times (4/17/11) ran a big front-page piece on John Tanton, founder of the anti-immigration organizations Federation for American Immigration Reform and Center for Immigration Studies. I guess it's positive that someone in corporate media is finally paying attention to Tanton's racism (long documented here at FAIR--1/1/93--and by groups like the Southern Poverty Law Center--Winter/08), and reporter Jason DeParle does include a good deal of damning information about Tanton and some of his own racist words.

But he also manages to interview almost exclusively people currently or formerly affiliated with Tanton's groups (six of these people in all) plus a few GOP officials--none of whom have anything bad to say about the Federation, CIS or Numbers USA (another Tanton-connected group), even if they're mildly critical of Tanton himself. A single critic is quoted, Frank Sharry of the progressive immigration reform group America's Voice. The result is that the piece essentially portrays Tanton as the only problem with these anti-immigrant groups, and though they won't kick him off their boards, THEY'RE not actually racist themselves--they just roll their eyes at their racist founder and tolerate his eccentricities.

DeParle explained the trouble with critics of the groups:

Accusations of bigotry could alienate moderates the immigrant rights groups need. Allies of Dr. Tanton say their accusers are discrediting themselves with a guilt-by-association campaign that twists his ideas and projects them onto groups where, they say, his influence long ago waned.

The idea is attributed to allies of Tanton, but that's the basic framing of the entire piece. If critics were given more space, they might have been able to point out that it's not just a Tanton problem--although the fact that he remains on the board of the Federation ought to be plenty damning in itself. As the SPLC documents (3/16/10), the racism at the Federation and CIS extends far beyond Tanton, permeating the board, staff and programming. Mark Krikorian, executive director of CIS, wrote in the National Review Online (1/21/10) that

Haiti's so screwed up because it wasn’t colonized long enough.... Unlike Jamaicans and Bajans and Guadeloupeans, et al., after experiencing the worst of tropical colonial slavery, the Haitians didn’t stick around long enough to benefit from it. (Haiti became independent in 1804.). And by benefit I mean develop a local culture significantly shaped by the more-advanced civilization of the colonizers.

Dan Stein, president of the Federation, was asked by Tucker Carlson (Wall Street Journal, 10/2/97) to respond to a quote from another Federation board member, eugenicist Garrett Hardin, who had warned that "breeders" were reproducing uncontrollably "in Third World countries," and that the "less intelligent" should be discouraged from "breeding." Stein's response: "Yeah, so what? What is your problem with that? Should we be subsidizing people with low IQs to have as many children as possible, and not subsidizing those with high ones?"

Rachel Maddow (MSNBC, 4/29/10) recently confronted Stein with this quote and other evidence of racism at the Federation compiled by the SPLC. Stein claimed that all of the SPLC's factual allegations about his group were wrong. The next night (4/30/10), Maddow factchecked Stein's claims, demonstrating that he, in Maddow's words, "was flat-out, totally shamelessly uncomplicatedly lying."

That's the kind of reporting that needs to be done on Stein and his colleagues.