I’ll soon be using this Web site to serialize King of America, the online version of my book about the Rev. Sun Myung Moon, his Washington Times and a galaxy of politicians embarrassing themselves. More on that in a bit.

Here’s a preview, a passage on previous meltdowns foreshadowing this last week’s stormy departure of editor-in-chief John Solomon.

King of America is adapted from a previous version, Bad Moon Rising, published by PoliPoint Press in 2008 and available on Amazon. Didn’t like the title.

Thanks for visiting. While a timeworn VHS tape of “The Natural” plays in the background, I’m wrangling with some HTML and putting the finishing touches on a book excerpt that will be on the site soon. Stay tuned, and be sure to check out the movie.

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Not everyone enjoyed The King of America, my shortfilm about the kinky world of the Rev. Sun Myung Moon and the Republicans who love him.

Writes Moon follower Tossa, from Seoul, Korea:

It may seem strange that Rev. Moon chooses to speak about the sexual organ, but don’t you think that God had a plan in mind for human beings when he created us male and female? It would make sense that a Messiah should teach us about the true way to use our sexual organs. Don’t you think that sexual organs have a greater value than to merely allow for reproduction?

Um… 1) Sure. 2) Maybe not. 3) Yes.

Tim Burton directs this realistic account of turning over your manuscript to a Bay Area publishing house.

But thanks to people like Daily Show creator Lizz Winstead, who had me on her funny Village show Shoot the Messenger a couple of weeks ago, being an author doesn’t always have to feel like entrusting your cherished bicycle to a squad of clown paramedics. Thanks, Lizz!

Also thanks to hero columnist Rick Casey, who writes in the Houston Chronicle about the Moonie cult’s obsession with making longtime patron George H.W. Bush drink their juice.

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 uncomfortablyfor 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 othersavailable 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]

Haven’t been here much since the Facebook singularity, my book tour*, and the collapse of print media. But I plan to try and be prolific again soon. For now you can find me at former Radar editor Aaron Gell’s new group blog ASSME, the online presence of a crucial industry organization. And I might even stick with this Twitter thing at @johngoren.

* I recently saw where some guy had put up a sort of Devil’s Dictionary of publishing industry terms. Can’t find it, but he defined “book tour” as “a hazing ritual designed to make the author compliant with the publisher.” Brilliant.

From Cape Cod Today:

The Wall Street Journal is read by the people who run the country but who will switch to The Washington Times if Rupert Murdoch starts to mess around with their bible and/or puts a daily nude Miss Subways photo on Page 6.

The Washington Post is read by people who think they run the country which is now being run by readers of Rev. Moon’s WashingtonTimes.

The Washington Times is read by Moonies, neocons, oligarchs, Third World dictators, president George W. Bush and the entire staff of the Bush White House.

I’ll be giving my first interview in Second Life tonight at 6:00 p.m. PST, if you’d like to join us in Cyber Space. Followers of the Rev. Sun Myung Moon are welcome to drop by to accuse me, like one Stephen Taylor, of being “a religious bigot — who also because he is gay, rails against people of faith who stand for traditional family values.” Or just do as in Rome, and unloose a hail storm of VR penises.

Here’s the Second Life URL, for those of you who are interested.

http://slurl.com/secondlife/InWorld%20Studios/49/54/28

There will also be a simulcast on BlogTalkRadio:

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/virtuallyspeaking

Special thanks to Rick Perlstein, who I hear has a fab Nixon avatar.