{"id":1992,"date":"2004-06-23T13:06:26","date_gmt":"2004-06-23T18:06:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/archives\/1992.html"},"modified":"2004-06-23T13:06:26","modified_gmt":"2004-06-23T18:06:26","slug":"the-post-plays-catch-up-on-moon-story","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/the-post-plays-catch-up-on-moon-story\/","title":{"rendered":"The Post plays catch-up on Moon story"},"content":{"rendered":"

There are two great angles to the Washington Post’s front-page article<\/a> today about a bizarre and disturbing “coronation” ceremony for the Rev. Sun Myung Moon in March. One is the actual substance of the article; the other is the way in which the major media has had to play catch-up.<\/p>\n

Chronicling Moon’s unusual influence in Washington’s political circles has been an ongoing project of John Gorenfeld, a freelance writer with a terrific blog<\/a>. Two weeks ago, Gorenfeld scooped everyone with a major article<\/a> for The Gadflyer<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Should Americans be concerned that on March 23rd a bipartisan group of Congressmen attended a coronation at which a billionaire, pro-theocracy newspaper owner was declared to be the Messiah \u2013 with royal robes, a crown, the works?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Gorenfeld lamented the fact that this event, which certainly seemed like a strange tidbit of news, was completely ignored by the press. Federal lawmakers were literally crowning a cult leader, who believes he was sent to Earth to complete the “failed mission” of Jesus, in a Senate Office Building<\/i>, and reporters acted like this was a non-story. Blogs cared; political reporters didn’t.<\/p>\n

Earlier this week, Salon picked up on the story<\/a> and asked Gorenfeld to write a follow-up to the Gadflyer piece. Finally, today, a major daily caught up<\/a>.
\n
\nAnd while the story behind the story is fun, the substance of Gorenfeld’s discovery is nothing short of astonishing.<\/p>\n

More than a dozen lawmakers attended a congressional reception this year honoring the Rev. Sun Myung Moon in which Moon declared himself the Messiah and said his teachings have helped Hitler and Stalin be “reborn as new persons.” <\/p>\n

At the March 23 ceremony in the Dirksen Senate Office Building, Rep. Danny K. Davis (D-Ill.) wore white gloves and carried a pillow holding an ornate crown that was placed on Moon’s head. The Korean-born businessman and religious leader then delivered a long speech saying he was “sent to Earth . . . to save the world’s six billion people. . . . Emperors, kings and presidents . . . have declared to all Heaven and Earth that Reverend Sun Myung Moon is none other than humanity’s Savior, Messiah, Returning Lord and True Parent.”<\/p>\n

[…]<\/p>\n

Moon has claimed to have spoken in “the spirit world” with all deceased U.S. presidents, Jesus, Moses, Mohammed and others. At the March 23 event, he said: “The founders of five great religions and many other leaders in the spirit world, including even Communist leaders such as Marx and Lenin . . . and dictators such as Hitler and Stalin, have found strength in my teachings, mended their ways and been reborn as new persons.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

There’s some question as to who, exactly, let Moon have space in the Dirksen Senate Office Building for this little soiree. <\/p>\n

Use of the Dirksen building requires a senator’s approval. [Sen. Mark Dayton (D-Minn.)] said he gave no such permission, and [George A. Stallings Jr., pastor of the Imani Temple, an independent African American Catholic congregation in Northeast Washington] said the question of who did so is “shrouded in mystery.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Someone<\/i> had to reserve the space. It shouldn’t be too terribly difficult to find out who.<\/p>\n

Now if only the Post had credited The Gadflyer<\/a> with publishing the story first…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There are two great angles to the Washington Post’s front-page article today about a bizarre and disturbing “coronation” ceremony for the Rev. Sun Myung Moon in March. One is the actual substance of the article; the other is the way in which the major media has had to play catch-up. Chronicling Moon’s unusual influence in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1992","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1992","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1992"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1992\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1992"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1992"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1992"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}