Texas-based “historian” and “Christian nation” advocate David Barton seems to have some kind of superpower – no matter how many times he is disgraced or proven wrong, he somehow bounces back. Now, despite a string of embarrassments, he seems to be forging a career as an informal advisor to top Republicans seeking to court the Religious Right.

When asked recently by Politico what sort of advisory role he might play for potential GOP presidential candidates who want to suck up to the Religious Right, Barton said: “I remain available to whoever wants to move that ball down the court.”

As evidence of his influence, the article noted that Barton joined in a prayer huddle at an Iowa event this summer with Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), who is widely considered to be a top candidate for the presidential election in 2016.

This is pretty amazing, really. Just last spring, Barton seemed to suffer a serious reputational blow when his book The Jefferson Lies, which absurdly argued that Thomas Jefferson was really a conservative Christian, was shown to be complete bunk by a group of conservative Christian scholars. So devastating was the critique that Christian publishing house Thomas Nelson stopped publication.

But Barton has never been one to listen to critics, and neither have his most ardent fans; it seems his base never deserted him.

“It has been shocking how much resistance there is to critically examining what Barton says,” Scott Culpepper, a history professor at Dordt College in Iowa who has criticized Barton’s work, told Poltico. “I really underestimated the power of the political element in evangelicalism.”

In fact, Glenn Beck’s publishing company, Mercury Ink, has said it plans to republish The Jefferson Lies, though a spokesman for that company would provide no further details to Politico.

Cruz certainly has a high opinion of Barton despite his obvious failings, and seems to buy into his bogus “Christian nation” theories.

“I’m not in a position to opine on academic disputes between historians, but I can tell you that David Barton is a good man, a courageous leader and a friend,” the Texas senator said. “David’s historical research has helped millions rediscover the founding principles of our nation and the incredible sacrifices that men and women of faith made to bequeath to us the freest and most prosperous nation in the world.”

Bolstered by that sort of endorsement, Politico said Barton will be on tour throughout this fall, speaking in Oklahoma, Nebraska and Kansas. He also still leads his “signature” tours of the Capitol building in Washington, D.C., in which he attempts to explain the supposed Christian roots of the United States.

Barton got into a bit of trouble with these tours recently, when it came to light that some videos of his “famous” tour were quietly edited to correct his mistakes. Back in 2007, Barton headlined a tour of the U.S. Capitol on behalf of the Family Research Council (FRC), a Religious Right advocacy group. FRC made a video of that tour, in which Barton made numerous false and misleading claims about the Founding Fathers and the supposed “Christian origins” of the United States.

So outrageous were some of Barton’s claims, that 34 Christian historians and social scientists asked FRC to pull the video from YouTube, said Warren Throckmorton, a professor at Grove City College, a conservative Christian institution in Pennsylvania.

FRC Vice President Kenyn Cureton admitted to Politico that the video was removed because of “a few historical inaccuracies,” but the organization still has close ties to Barton.

A similar incident apparently occurred with Focus on the Family, which Politico said edited two Barton videos featured on its website. A segment in which Barton claims Congress printed the first English-language Bible in America, and intended it to be used in schools, was deleted.

Carrie Gordon Earll, a senior director of public policy at Focus on the Family, told Politico she could not comment on the edits except to say that Focus on the Family “has enjoyed a long and fruitful relationship with David Barton” and respects his “broad base of knowledge.”

As a result of these incidents, Throckmorton said on his blog today that he doesn’t believe Barton’s reputation is as strong as Politico makes it appear.

Sadly that might not matter. Barton claims that his comments are sometimes taken out of context and defended his work as being impeccable.

That’s the problem with Barton – in his mind, he’s never wrong. No matter how many actual historians or scholars debunk him and no matter how often it happens, Barton is beyond reproach in his own head.

Compounding this problem is Barton’s fans, who aren’t really interested in history or the truth. They just want someone to tell them that America really is a “Christian nation,” and that’s exactly what Barton does. As long as there are people out there who want to buy what Barton sells, he’s going to remain in business.