Q. What led you to begin studying the influence of Rev. Moon on American politics?

A. I couldn’t believe the absurd relationship between conservatives and the Rev. Moon wasn’t famous. Washington’s guardians of moral virtue had found a way to team up with an iconic ’70s megalomaniac.

If Moon didn’t exist, a James Bond movie would invent him. It’s not that his theology is odd, but that he gives these mad speeches about installing himself as world leader. In Washington it’s treated as a campy joke. Only it’s not, because he publishes a major newspaper.

I was drawn to the contradictions that ensue when Moon appears at fancy Beltway dinner parties and embarrasses the audience. Right-wing Republicans, keen on keeping the money flowing, will listen uncomfortably for 45 minutes to Moon as he chops the air with his hands and shouts things like, “Free sex is centered on Satan!” and, “No one can oppose me!”

Little did I know that it wasn’t just a story of wretched Washington amorality, but a haunting, 40-year epic of corruption. What hooked me was Robert Boettcher’s 1980 book Gifts of Deceit. Boettcher was a frustrated young congressional investigator, trying to warn America of Moon’s growing influence in Washington as part of a 1978 influence-peddling probe. Boettcher died a few years later, falling from his apartment, his book ignored.

There’s no one else in U.S. history like Moon. First he was accused of tricking tens of thousands of young Americans into joining a cult; in the Carter years, congressmen from both parties issued dire warnings about his apocalyptic agenda, involving a “Unification Crusade Army” that would topple democracy; and now he’s publishing The Washington Times, as if nothing ever happened.

Hope you’ll read the rest, here.

Former president George H.W. Bush (left) and longtime travel companion Sun Myung Moon (right)

Jeremiah Wright? Come on.

The Moonies have just trumpeted the latest delegation of their dreaded leader, Sun Myung Moon, to the Bush presidential library in College Station, TX. The occasion: a statesmanlike party Moon was throwing in D.C., from April 28 to May 2, 2008, celebrating his dreams of influencing world events and burying Jesus Christ.

The host: George H.W. Bush.

These mundane photos are from UPF.org, an official Web site of the cult. Moon is on record as opposing constitutional government; according to his church, he told the folks at the Bush library that he envisioned a world [emphasis mine]

where some of the weaknesses of democracy, and in particular the wasted efforts of extreme partisanship, can be relieved by the involvement of elder statesmen as senior advisors.

Elder statesman like, oh, for example, Washington Times publisher Sun Myung Moon, who has dumped over $3 billion into the conservative paper. According to a reliable source within the Moon organization who provided me with password-guarded HTML files, the Reverend elaborated on his fantasies last year in a sermon so shocking, it was not released to the public (unlike thousands of others available online.)

All the irrelevant books in the world should be burned away. I cannot tolerate books that belong under the leftist ideology. Do you understand?

Here are some highlights of the past relationship between the Bush family and Moon’s cult, which typically poses as a world peace organization to cultivate an aura of gravity, sort of like Star Trek’s United Federation of Planets. (As seen here, the church also sometimes calls itself the “Washington Times Foundation” when convenient.)

1995. George and Barbara Bush give six paid speeches in Asia for Moon’s “Women’s Federation,” while mothers of cult members beg them not to. [Washington Post]

1996. The former president surfaces with Moon in Buenos Aires, Argentina, where he’s filmed introducing the publisher as “the man with the vision” whose newspaper, the Washington Times, restores “sanity to Washington.” “Reverend Moon never told ‘em what to say, who to endorse…” [Reuters, BBC]

2005-present. George’s son Neil joins Moon for ongoing tour of the Third World. [AP]

2005. $250,000 is paid by a Moon company to George W. Bush reinauguration fund. [MSNBC]

2006. A million dollars apparently finds its way from Moon interests to the Bush presidential library. [Houston Chronicle]

2006. Former GOP insider Kevin Phillips writes that Moon “has been close to” the Bush family. Columnist David Brooks calls this a “bizarre assertion” and an example of “the paranoid style in American politics.” [New York Times]

2007. Michael Jenkins, chief of the American arm of the Moonies, is filmed making bizarre claims that the cult convinced George H.W. Bush to drink its “Holy Juice,” a mystery fluid that brings drinkers into communion with the Reverend Moon, during another trip to the presidential library at Texas A&M.
I ask about this. Spokesman Jim Appleby says, by e-mail: “the Office of Former President Bush cannot justify such a ridiculous question with an answer.” [YouTube]

Thanks to Australian public radio and host Rachael Kohn for having me on today to discuss Bad Moon Rising, my fun new book about the Moonies, the cult of the Capitol.

Best thing about being done with a book about conservative media? Clearing my main hard drive of 30 GB of research material, including all these pervy, mind-numbing documents from the world of Washington Times publisher Reverend Moon, with such filenames as “The Most Holy Place.ppt.”