Keith Olbermann Enrolls In Glenn Beck University

Class is in session! Glenn Beck University is open for business, and they’ve already got at least one student that is all but guaranteed to spend his entire tenure in front of the disciplinary board: Keith Olbermann. Olbermann e-attended the first lecture with Beck U Professor David Barton and, given that he thinks Barton is a “Christian nationalist pseudo-historian,” he took the lecture with a grain of salt.

Barton’s lecture centered on the religious background of the American Revolution, with the clip that angered Olbermann the most being a citation of historian Alice Baldwin, who noted that many of the provision in the Declaration of Independence had made appearances in the sermons of local preachers before they found their way on the document. Olbermann complains that “you are worthless, Alice Baldwin,” but doesn’t really elaborate, and sums up the rest of Barton’s lecture as the latter “fudging up more history” before concluding his lecture.

For further analysis, Olbermann had Huffington Post contributor Chris Rodda, who went a little further into detail with her complaints about the class than Olbermann did. She also took issue with the claim that preachers were talking about the points in the Declaration of Independence in their sermons:

“If you Google the Declaration, 27 points from the Bible, you‘ll get probably thousands of hits. Because basically he usually just—he doesn‘t go into detail of where he gets this from in his other presentations. But he says all 27 points are based on the Bible. And people just keep parroting that and parroting that.”

Points from the Bible and political topics brought up independently by preachers are two different things, but no matter. Rodda also noted that the claim that Constitutional Convention took three days off to go to church is distorted– according to Rodda, it was actually a three-day general break during which some members of the convention dropped by the church, rather than the religious retreat Barton made it out to be.

Sounds like Olbermann and company are giving Beck University a D- for its lecture, which is probably a battle scar the online seminars will wear with pride. It is unclear as of yet whether Olbermann will pursue his residency at Beck Hospital.

Video from last night’s Countdown below: