The Life and Moonie Times of George HW Bush

To follow up on yesterday's post, let's consider one of the enduring riddles of the Bush White House call boy scandal (that is, the other Bush White House, and the other call boy): why, of all the media empires to break the story and run with it, often page one and above the fold, was it that of the Unification Church?

The expressed purpose of The Washington Times since Reverend Sun Myung Moon launched it in 1982 has been to provide a conservative Republican voice in the US capital. Paul Weyrich has called it an "antidote" to The Washington Post, its "liberal competitor." (Yeah, me neither.) The unexpressed purpose has been to win for Moon influence over US politicians. Sometimes, the two are in conflict. In fact, to succeed, on occassion they must be.

Perpetual deference makes for a fine doormat, but I've yet to wipe my feet on one of influence. And certainly Moon hasn't shovelled more than a billion dollars down the Times' boiler to have Republican feet, even Bush feet, wiped upon his satin robes.

So I'm wondering (and it's thanks to this discussion generated by yesterday's post): did the Times initially play this story as big as it did in order to win influence over the Bush White House? In other words, Look - we got the goods - what you gonna do about it? The Times said it had the names of Spence's clients, and that they included politicians, as well as military, media and business figures. Blackmail, it's called in impolite circles. This could explain why the scandal was made to go away virtually overnight, the names undisclosed. Because, they did something about it.

"In the early stages of the Reagan Revolution that embraced the Washington Times and Moon's anti-Communist movement, it was embarrassing to be caught at a Moon event," wrote The Gadflyer last year. "Until George H.W. Bush appeared with Moon in 1996, thanking him for a newspaper that 'brings sanity to Washington.'" That was while on an extended trip to South America in Moon's company. A Reuters' story of Nov 25 of that year describes the former president as "full of praise" for Moon at a banquet in Buenos Aires, toasting him as "the man with the vision." (And Moon helped Bush out with his own vision thing, paying him $100,000 for the pleasure of his company.) Bush and Moon then travelled together to Uruguay, "to help him inaugurate a seminary in the capital, Montevideo, to train 4,200 young Japanese women to spread the word of his Church of Unification across Latin America."

Bush praising Moon as "the man with the vision":


And I can't help but wonder about Moon's "enthronement" ceremony last year in the Capitol's Dirksen Building, in which he crowned himself humanity’s "savior, Messiah, Returning Lord and True Parent." The coronation was attended by Representatives Danny Davis (D-Ill.), Curt Weldon (R-Pa.), Roscoe Bartlett (R-Md.) and others. Davis, in white gloves, placed a jeweled crown on the head of the Reverend's wife. Asked later if he thought it unusual, Davis replied "I see people crowned. I go to parades quite a bit … [and see] the queen of the homecoming parade, queen of the festival."

Rep. Davis, left, crownbearer:


Moon had better have something on Davis, or else I have no respect for him.

The Saviour of the World, and Mrs:



By the way, it was nice to see Scott McLellan's predictable snort of derision, calling the Gannon story "just a wild conspiracy theory". In uncertain times, it's important to have some things we can depend upon. And I hope he keeps it up. The more he plays the "conspiracy theory" card, the less power the words have to injure, and deter legitimate inquiry. Because if everything is a conspiracy theory, then someone really ought to be teaching this stuff in university.