By Tim Murphy
Meet W. Cleon Skousen: conspiracy theorist, slavery apologist, tea party icon. Mitt Romney says you should read him.
To hear Mitt Romney tell it, President Barack Obama's three years at Harvard Law School helped turn him into an aloof, big-government-loving radical. "We have a president, who I think is a nice guy, but he spent too much time at Harvard, perhaps," Romney told an audience in Pennsylvania in April. But if the de facto GOP presidential nominee wants to make educational experiences a focal point of his candidacy, he could be playing with fire.
In an interview with an Iowa radio station five years ago, the former Massachusetts governor acknowledged the influence of a controversial figure from his own schoolboy pastW. Cleon Skousen, the late Mormon historian and tea party hero who taught Romney at Brigham Young University. A former FBI agent, Salt Lake City police chief, and professional conspiracy theorist, Skousen fashioned a narrative of American history that held a unique appeal to religious conservativesall based on the notion that the Founding Fathers were members of a lost tribe of Israel. His work also sparked a fierce backlash over racist passages and baseless, bordering on conspiratorial, assertions that prompted the Mormon church to take steps to quash his influence.
More: Mitt Romney's Nutty Professor | Mother Jones
