Why aren't John McCain and the GOP's links to the Reverend Moon and his Unification Church dominating the news cycle?  The Moon story has income tax fraud, adultery, reincarnation, violence, billions of dollars spent to keep money-losing right-wing institutions afloat AND hilarious video of the Reverend Moon being crowned as "the New Messiah" in the Senate Office Building in a ceremony sponsored and organized by one of John McCain's chief advisors.  We're talking a coronation with scarlet fur robes and big gold CROWNS -- big ol' Burger King hats made of precious metal and ornamented with valuable gems.

This story has EVERYTHING!  Why aren't we seeing footage of it 24/7?

I have no jokes left to tell about the Rev. Moon, publisher of the Washington Times and sponsor of the Bush family. As the story grows increasingly lurid, wretched and morally objectionable, I often feel like Elliot Gould as the detective in Robert Altman's The Long Goodbye: "Nobody cares but me." Well, or me and Ed Brayton.

But then a hero columnist like the Houston Chron's Rick Casey comes along with this deadpan bombshell: "Did Bush sip Moon's 'holy juice'?"

I don't know what a search of Politicians and their Crazy Pastors on traditional media would come up with. But without seeing the results, I'm willing to speculate the double standard in play on progressive Vs. conservative crazy pastor problems is just breathtaking:

Ed Brayton -- And did you see one article anywhere in the mainstream media about it? I've not seen one that even mentions that on May 2nd, the former president and father of the current president, George HW Bush, was paid by the world's most prominent fascist cult leader to give yet another speech on his behalf, with Moon on the same stage. And it happened right in Washington DC, where the media has no excuse for not knowing about it.

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.

One of the more remarkable dimensions of the sprawling, diverse, and powerful political movement we generically call the Religious Right, is the empire of Rev. Sun Myung Moon and his Unification Church.  It is also one of its least well understood.

To read the purveyors of the 'Religious Right is dead, dying or irrelevant' narrative, one would think that the movement was limited to white evangelical Christians. Suffice to say that as central as that demographic has been, they are not now, nor have they ever been the only element of the Religious Right -- one of the most significant political movements in American history.  The movement, whatever its ups and downs, has built not only on demographgics, but via a formidable array of media, academic, and political institutions, and the grooming of a generation of leaders and activists who will continue to contest for power long after the founding generation of Religious Right leaders passes from the scene, and even as some organizations of the Religious Right go with them.

For those tempted by the sketchily-supported Religious Right is dead, dying or irrelevant narrative: consider the Moon organization before you buy.

Cross posted at a Arevolutionofone.net.

Beyond the pure insanity of a nutty cult leader having the influence that Reverend Moon has, there are so many things so very wrong here I hardly know where to begin. But I'll force myself to start with what's been in the news recently. And I'll do it briefly because, as I've said before, this topic has been discussed to death in the corporate media. And now that I think about it, it's not that it's been discussed so much, but how it's been discussed, as an endless 20 second loop, that's the problem.

Word was, earlier this month, that the Reverend Moon's wretched Washington Times was going mainstream with the arrival of John Solomon. Known to Media Matters fans for his questionable attacks on John Edwards, Solomon was being pitched to us as the guy who would usher the Times into being a real newspaper. No more scare quotes around the word "gay," for example!

Today, though, Think Progress reports that Mr. Solomon has assured the conservative Heritage Foundation that he hasn't "drunk the Kool-Aid" of the Washington Post. Which is kinda funny considering his new boss literally commands cult members to drink "Holy Juice" symbolizing the blood of Reverend Moon.

Karl Rove may have been Bush's Brain, but the nimrods at NewsBlusters are the ones who seem to be in need of gray matter reinforcements. NB's Matthew Sheffield did an interview with Rove that is downright hilarious.

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The Internet's Chronicle Of Media Decay.

John Gorenfeld's book on the empire of Rev. Sun Myung Moon is out today.

What Congressional investigators in the 1970s called "the Moon organization" has played a malevolent role in American politics since the 1960's.  And yet politicians from both parties (but mostly Republicans), and religious, academic and media  leaders who really should know better, have taken Moon's largess, lent their good names to his enterprizes and looked the other way as his South Korea based agency interfered in American public life. (There is even a Moon/Farrakhan connection.)

Others here have written well about the news about the federal indictment of former Rep. Mark Siljander (R-MI), so I will mention the details only in passing.

Back in the 1980's then-Rep. Mark Siljander (R-MI) was one of America's leading theocratic politicians. He was a high profile member of the Christian Right, and a close political allyof Rev. Sun Myung Moon.

Today he is the posterboy for how the Framers of the Constitution and the ratifying states got it right when they proscribed religious oaths and tests for public office; protected the rights of individual conscience; discouraged religious supremacism and resolutely separated church and state.

John Solomon, known for his hatchet jobs investigative reporting of prominent Democrats has left his current job at the Washington Post to become Executive Editor of The Washington Times

Seven years ago this month, two of the most controversial figures in American public life were busy ramping-up what they called the "Million Family March" -- that would occur just two weeks before the 2000 presidential election. I broke the story of the strange alliance of Rev. Sun Myung Moon and Louis Farrakhan in Salon.com, an event that was soon forgotten in the wake of the dramatic  conclusion of the 2000 election. The event was not a "million" scale event, and some scheduled speakers and performers were no-shows, perhaps because of this expose. But it was nevertheless a strange and noteworthy example of the way that complicated, and significant political currents course through public life, even today.

While Farrakhan has faded from public life, Moon continues to actively influence American politics and public life as a major figure of the religious right.

I am posting my entire Salon.com story on the flip.

Elfen rightwing scold Gary Bauer today condemned MoveOn.org for giving General Petraeus a nickname and huffily-puffily demanded that Democrats "denounce this ad [and] demand an apology from MoveOn.org."

Ahh, yes, the righteous indignation of the common wingnuttius Americana.

Let's have some fun with this one, shall we?

While this week bloggers around the world are engaged in the Blog Against Theocracy, we here at Theocrat of the Week wish to highlight the many fine people on whom who Our Distiguished Panel of Judges has bestowed the honor of Theocrat of the Week.

Here we unscroll the Honor Roll (so far):

Former Washington Times contributing writer Bill White (right) is behind harassment of writer Leonard Pitts, Jr.

Quite a number of African-American community leaders have welcomed the Rev. Sun Myung Moon, Washington Times publisher, as a modern-day Martin Luther King, Jr. One commentator has called him a role model for black fatherhood, even hailing his mass weddings as an antidote to "the imagined lure of thug life."

In fact, as Bill Berkowitz reported, such have been the efforts of the Unification Church to identify itself with the black civil rights legacy that it won $80,000 in federal funds to celebrate King's birthday. Moon's son, the charming Hyun Jin, has even said: "It has been my father's work that's really raised Martin Luther King onto the national level, to be respected nationally."
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George H. W. Bush 41, who "strongly believes in the mission" of Sun Myung Moon, will help the conservative movement and Bush family’s sugar daddy promote two major deceptions when the former president is scheduled to give the keynote address at the Washington Times 25th anniversary bash this Thursday, May 17.

Judging by a similar event held 5 years ago, we can expect Bush and other speakers to promote the frame that the Washington Times is somehow "independent" of Moon and his plans to manipulate the political direction of America as part of his long sought goal to subdue the planet. The speakers will also, as Dr. Laura did five years ago when she toasted Moon and his propaganda unit, peddle the idea that somehow, almost miraculously, the paper has survived despite it critics.

Both of these views are misleading and we will show why below the fold. As a bonus we will document that Bush’s own spokesperson has stated that Bush 41, who has repeatedly sold the name, honor and prestige of the Presidency of the United States to Moon, "strongly believes in the mission" of Sun Myung Moon.

Here is the introductory portion of independent researcher Larry Zilliox's investigative work showing that over $3,000,000 have flowed from a fake "nonprofit" foundation for "world peace", controlled by the Unification Church, to the Bush family.

(Cross-posted at Talk2Action)

(Mike Signorile is on this story too.)

He thought the "God Hates Fags" church had the right idea, after watching footage of the Rev. Fred Phelps and his vile kin. And he said as much in a heartfelt post the other day to Jeremy Hooper's gay rights blog, Good As You. "[T]ry to understand where [Phelps] is coming from," he said.

But then the proprietor of Good As You discovered  that this was no ordinary Phelps fan, but a senior official in a fancy anti-gay group housed at the Washington Times building.