The Newspaper Of The "New Messiah" Celebrates Its 25th Birthday

Two President Bush's & Margaret Thatcher Pay Homage

The Washington Times has been very good to the Bush Family. It's helped cover up outrageous scandals, spread rumours that tainted presidential competitors and always been there to give the current President Bush an extra heaping of praise and support when the realities of Washington get too mean and nasty.

No wonder The Washington Times' own editor claims it is the Bush's "favourite newspaper."

Established by the Reverend Sun Myung Moon, who branded himself the "New Messiah", back in 1982, the Washington Times is now 25 years old, and it's time for celebrations :

George H.W. Bush, the 41st president of the United States, last night told the 25th anniversary gala for The Washington Times that when the Cold War raged, he and President Reagan before him were supported by "a newspaper that would stand for free people."

Mr. Bush said that while other newspapers raised fears that the Reagan administration was leading the nation toward a nuclear holocaust, the fledgling newspaper stood firm in support of the nation's security.

"Then a funny thing happened: Freedom prevailed," Mr. Bush said.

Mr. Bush grew philosophical as he reviewed the quarter of a century he and the newspaper shared. "This is truly a cathartic experience for me. It's been 14 years since I left Washington behind and, to be honest, when I left the White House after the 1992 campaign, I did not feel particularly charitable towards the Beltway press corps.

"For four years as president, and for eight years before that, I had been subjected to some tough treatment at the hands of the Fourth Estate.

"The editors and the editorial writers of The Washington Times understood the stakes of the Cold War and were not the least bit shy about voicing their support for national leaders in the two great political parties who were trying to end the threat posed by the Soviet Union."

The "New Messiah" was on hand to deliver a 35 minute long speech to the 2000 strong crowd.

"Please do not miss your chance to ride on the currents of heavenly fortune that will surge together during this important and sacred year," Rev. Moon said. He said the future of American security lies in the Pacific Rim.

A letter from the today's President Bush was read out. He said the Washington Times' "efforts help advance the ideals that make our nation strong."

Margaret Thatcher, the former prime minister of the United Kingdom, sent greetings in a video that was projected onto several large screens.

"As long as The Washington Times is alive and well, conservative voices will never be drowned out," she said.

For a supposedly deeply religious man, President Bush seems little troubled to be associated with the self-proclaimed new messiah. Nor do any number of "compassionate conservative" Christians on the Hill.

Are they not troubled by Sun Myung Moon's more bizarre pronouncements?

More than a dozen lawmakers attended a congressional reception this year (2004) 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."

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."

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."

With his spectacular wealth and vast reach of influence deep into the power centres of the Washington elite, perhaps it should be viewed as a blessing in disguise that Sun Myung Moon promotes peace over war.

But Moon is said to be no fan of the United States as it exists today, but again, the elder President Bush seems untroubled by violent and vehement verbal attacks on the US by Moon, regularly giving paid speeches to groups and organisations affiliated with the Moonies in Asia and South America. Even when Moon was vowing, in August 2006, to :

liquidate American individuality, declaring that his movement would “swallow entire America.” Moon said Americans who insisted on “their privacy and extreme individualism … will be digested.”

Three months later Bush The Elder gave a well paid speech in Beunos Aires where he declared :

"I want to salute Reverend Moon...”

One estimate claims that the Bush The Elder has racked up some $10 million in "fees" and "donations" from Sun Myung Moon over the decades.

Perhaps Moon's wealth has won him more friends in the elite circles of American power, moreso than his desire to "swallow America whole".


Investigative journalist Robert Parry has been tracking the relationship between the Bush Family and the Washington Times for decades. The key to the relationship, says Parry, is the remarkably close friendship, and financial relationship, between the Bush Family and the Washington Times' key funder, the Reverand Sun Myung Moon, who is said to lose more than $100 million a year keeping the newspaper on the racks of Washington news stands.

In the end, perhaps it is really no surprise at all that the elder President Bush has so much praise for the Washington Times. After all, as Robert Parry points out, the newspaper has been very good to him :

After its founding in 1982, The Washington Times staunchly supported some of the Reagan-Bush administration’s most controversial policies, such as the contra war in Nicaragua.

When the contra operation was embarrassed by initial public disclosures of contra drug trafficking in 1985-86, The Washington Times led the counterattack, criticizing journalists and congressional investigators who uncovered the first evidence of the problem.

Those attacks helped cement a conventional wisdom in the Washington political community that the contra-drug allegations were bogus, a belief that persisted until 1998 when the CIA's inspector general admitted that dozens of contra units were implicated in cocaine trafficking and that the Reagan-Bush administration had hidden much of the evidence.

During national political campaigns, Moon’s Washington Times was especially influential, mounting harsh – and often inaccurate – attacks on the Bush family's adversaries.

In 1988, when George H.W. Bush was running for president, The Washington Times publicized false rumors about the mental health of Democratic candidate Michael Dukakis, an important first step in raising doubts about the Massachusetts governor.

In Bush’s 1992 reelection campaign, The Washington Times was helping again, spreading new false rumors that Bill Clinton might have betrayed his country during a college trip to Moscow, possibly being recruited by the KGB as a spy.

Moon Has Declared Himself The New Messiah, Vows To Complete Jesus Christ's "Failed Mission", Wants To Unite The World's Religions