Congressional leaders attend coronation of Moon? WTF? Someone

[harrison]

tell me this is some kind of joke. Right?


Moon Over Washington
Why are some of the capital’s most influential power players hanging out with a bizarre Korean billionaire who claims to be the Messiah?
by John Gorenfeld, Contributor
6.09.04

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 – with royal robes, a crown, the works? Or that this imperial ceremony took place not in a makeshift basement church or a backwoods campsite, but in a Senate office building?

Cut to the ritual. Eyes downcast, a man identified as Congressman Danny K. Davis (D-Ill.) is bringing a crown, atop a velvety purple cushion, to a figure who stands waiting austerely with his wife. Now Moon is wearing robes that Louis XIV would have appreciated. All of this has quickly been spliced into a promo reel by Moon's movement, which implies to its followers that the U.S. Congress itself has crowned the Washington Times owner.

But Section 9 of the Constitution forbids giving out titles of nobility, setting a certain tone that might have made the Congressional hosts shy about celebrating the coronation on their websites. They included conservatives, the traditional fans of Moon's newspaper: Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), Rep. Curt Weldon (R-PA.), Rep. Chris Cannon (R-Utah), Rep. Roscoe Bartlett (R-Md.) and Republican strategy god Charlie Black, whose PR firm represents Ahmed Chalabi’s Iraqi National Congress. But there were also liberal House Democrats like Sanford Bishop (D-Ga.) and Davis. Rep. Harold Ford (D-Tenn.) later told the Memphis Flyer that he'd been erroneously listed on the program, but had never heard of the event, which was sponsored by the Washington Times Foundation.

Rep. Curt Weldon's office tenaciously denied that the Congressman was there, before being provided by The Gadflyer with a photo depicting Weldon at the event, found on Moon's website. "Apparently he was there, but we really had nothing to do with it," press secretary Angela Sowa finally conceded. "I don't think it's quite accurate that the Washington Times said that we hosted the event. We may have been a Congressional co-host, but we have nothing to do with the agenda, the organization, the scheduling, and our role would be limited explicitly to the attendance of the Congressman."

http://gadflyer.com/articles/?ArticleID=131

[LittleApple81]

1. No joke. Pictures, articles, questions to congresscritters that

they tried to weasel out of (but pictures were taken... isn't that funny, how pictures get you every time). It has been discussed in GD during the last 2 or 3 days. Moon owns a big chunk of this country and "our representatives."

[acmavm]

2. Someone needs to send a letter to Hastert and demand an explanation

for this.

I bet bush* is mad that Moon is wearing his crown.

[acmavm]

3. Sorry, don't know how I duped my reply.

.

[LittleApple81]

4. For those of you who did not see the older posts in DU, here

is the link to the movie in Korean (could not make the one in English work). The congresscritters appear approximately 13 minutes into the movie. Just copy and paste the following link into your browser address window:
mms://211.174.185.3/vod/2004/q2/20040426179502.wmv

[Karenina]

6. Here's another current thread in editorials

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=103x56367

And Octafish posted one months ago... WTF did I do with that link? :argh: HELP!!!!

[gpandas]

5. congress is about money, moon has a lot of it n/t