Red Room Where the Writers Are

Now shipping: My new book, Bad Moon Rising.

The subtitle: How Reverend Moon Created the Washington Times, Seduced the Religious Right and Built an American Kingdom.

My book is about the conservative love affair with Sun Myung Moon. Who's Moon, you ask? What L. Ron Hubbard is to Hollywood, Moon is to Washington. Widely considered a dangerous madman in the 1970s, when he upended thousands of American families as the figurehead of the "Moonies," this billionaire Korean religionist has quietly reinvented himself as an important ally of the Religious Right, which purports to defend traditional Christianity while treating him as a great spiritual leader.

As publisher of the Washington Times, Moon funds the daily news source that's a wellspring of conservative media. From flogging the War On Christmas, to whipping up Minuteman border hysteria, to popularizing tall tales of Saddam's WMD (spirited out of the country by Russian agents, naturally!) Stories born at the Times surface everywhere in the conservative news world, from talk radio to Fox News to the National Review.

Among Moon's teachings:

* Jesus was a failure, and Moon his replacement.
* Only Moon can purify the human race by choosing who marries whom, and dictating their sexual positions.
* God wants American democracy (which is Satanic) replaced by a religious monarchy under Moon, the True Father.
* The Holocaust was punishment for the Jewish murder of Jesus.
* Gays are "dung-eating dogs" who should be wiped from the Earth in a "purge on God's orders."
* Women in the U.S. are "a line of prostitutes."
* The Washington Times will be "the instrument in spreading the truth about God to the world."
* "Many people will die, those who oppose our movement."

If only that were the end of the story. Addicted to Moon's river of cash, much of which comes from swindling widows in Japan, Washington's most moralistic politicians just can't seem to quit Moon and his topsy-turvy world. George H.W. Bush, for example, toured Japan and Latin America with him in the '90s.

And in 2004, in a scene that the editors of the New York Times likened to Caligula proclaiming himself a god, Moon even arranged for members of Congress to attend him as the King of America, swathed in purple robes and a glittering crown. Meanwhile, in spite of sober pronouncements by Times management about "editorial independence," Moon himself raves about using the prestige of his paper to cultivate personal power, which over the years has led to influence-peddling scandals and Washington intrigue.

To learn more, visit the book's official Web site, which supplements the book with photographs and multimedia. As the month goes on, I'll be posting various pieces of amazing video footage, including a mini-documentary on the Reverend Moon's presence in New York, and never-before-seen footage from a 30-year scandal.

In the meantime, the unstoppable L.A. blogger Scoobie Davis has been posting about recent developments in the lunar world. For example, presidential brother Neil Bush has inexplicably been following Sun Myung Moon to the ends of the earth.

Also, actor Barry Boys will be portraying dead U.S. presidents, from James K. Polk to Theodore Roosevelt, whom Moon claims in expensive full-page newspaper ads to have endorsed him from beyond the grave. Here's George Washington.

Thanks for reading!