We see this sort of re-framing American history quite often from the Religious Right, mainly because their entire worldview depends on it.  Since, in their view, America was founded by God and established for the propagation of Christianity, then everything good that has happened has been because Christians were following the Bible while everything bad was a result of not having Christians in charge and not following the Bible.

We see this mentality at work in the way the Religious Right proclaims that it was Christians who ended slavery and in the assertion that they are the ideological descendents of civil rights champions like Martin Luther King Jr.

How a movement dominated by Southern conservative Christian fundamentalists has managed to convince itself that it is the modern-day bearer of MLK's legacy has always been something of a mystery to us.  After all, if fundamentalist Christians were the ones championing the Civil Rights struggle, then who were the ones standing in the way and turning the fire hoses on the activists?

As Fischer explained yesterday, it was the liberals