Thank goodness Howard Kurtz is on the job

I think enabling 'thought-leaders' is just super spiffy. Know what we could really use more of? 'Fact-suppliers'. Just not nearly enough of those going around. They seem to be in remarkably short supply among both the 'Joe the Plumbers' and the 'major thinkers' on the conservative side.

If TheConservatives.com accomplishes anything at all, I will be surprised if it amounts to more than furthering nonsense such as death panels and whiny rants about funding for illegal aliens.

I'm beginning to wonder if when 'fair and balanced' is now laid claim to, what people like Kurtz really mean is that, since reality is apparently has a center-left disposition, for anything to be fair and balanced means it needs to lean more than a little right. You know, to balance the liberal reality bias fairly with some of that righty charm that people like Beck and Limbaugh specialize in.

Having folks of the intellectual wieght of Joe, the not a plumber, give input to Newton and friends would see the creation of a true perpetual motion machine. The input is substance free, the output measurable in puppy fart units.
Invest today, for mirth, for girth, and a new/old future/past.

What is Kurtzie's point? Does he really think a Moonie paper will become less neocon? Why, even in his role as "media critic," would he assert such a position when it will come back to slap him silly?

Strange.

Technology, schmectology, the only way some regular Joe is gonna interact with a "thinker" like Gingrich is if and when Gingrich wants to interact with Joe. Fancy technology is completely beside the point.

It's astonishing how uninformed people are about the WT and its purpose in Moon's vision. Moon wanted a right wing America suitable for his "mission," - fertile soil for homophobes, authoritarians, union haters and of course, his beloved theocrats. So he plops a propaganda paper down in the middle of DC in 1982, right before everyone's eyes, to stir up just that and no one wants to face what it is doing, its real purpose. Instead they let the WT push diversions over the paper's "independence."

Moon, who wants "American style democracy" replaced, doesn't shy from saying what he is doing. His members know what "Father's projects" are about, why can't the American public be in on the ruse?

I influenced America through the Washington Times and so many different activities. (Sun Myung Moon - September 13, 2002 "The Last Days Are Coming to America.")

The paper also serves to bring him influence around the world and it's something to show his followers how powerful he is which helps him keep his thumb on their minds. He funds it all with billions in overseas cash, predominantly coming from Japan(according to the WP's own reporting) and no one talks about that. Japan happens to be where the Unification Church has been found responsible for swindling widows out of hundreds of millions, possibly billions, of dollars. The claims against the UC have now topped one billion USD. Those fighting the cases say that figure represents less than one tenth of the damages to the citizens of Japan. The claims have now topped 30,000.

Read the ugly story of how the UC makes some of cash it uses to fund its activities in the USA here.

This is what the WT's first editor said about the Moon organization, I strongly suggest Mr. Kurtz and anyone who "thinks" they know the purpose of Moon's media to watch this video:

James Whelan from the video:

"They (the Moonies) are subverting our political system. They're doing it through front organizations--most of them disguised--and through their funding of independent organizations--through the placement of volunteers in the inner sanctums of hard-pressed organizations. In every instance--in every instance--those who attend their conferences, those who accept their money or their volunteers, delude themselves that there is no loss of virtue because the Moonies have not proselytized. That misses the central, crucial point: the Moonies are a political movement in religious clothing. Moon seeks power, not the salvation of souls. To achieve that, he needs religious fanatics as his palace guard and shock troops. But more importantly, he needs secular conscripts--seduced by money, free trips, free services, seemingly endless bounty and booty--in order to give him respectability and, with it, that image of influence which translates as power."

So Moon and the Heritage Foundation are not just in bed together, they have pulled up the covers.

U.S News and World Report March 27, 1989
Rev. Moon's Rising Political Influence
His empire is spending big money trying to win favor with conservatives.

On New Year's Day, 1987, South Korean mystic Sun Myung Moon, who considers himself to be the son of God, told his Unification church followers that he wanted to expand the church's political influence in the United States. His aim, Moon said, was "the natural subjugation of the American government and population."[...]

...the (Unification) church has established a network of affiliated organizations and connections in almost every conservative organization in Washington, including the Heritage Foundation, the largest of the conservative think tanks and an important source of government personnel during the Reagan administration. Although Heritage officials deny it, the foundation has dramatically changed its policy toward the Unification Church. In the early 80's the foundation, wary of the church's aims, prohibited staff or fellows from being associated with Unification Church organizations or taking money from the church or church-financed institutions.

As the Washington Times has become the voice of capital conservatives, the Heritage Foundation has become far more tolerant of church ties. [...]

More on Heritage and Moon from an old comment...

Spend some time searching for Nile Gardiner, who is a fellow at the Heritage Foundation and has written for many right wing publications including the National Review. Gardiner, is now blogging from across the pond for the London Daily Torygraph but is still widely quoted by the right here. Go ahead, do a news google on his name. Gardiner is a Brit and an excessively rabid right wing Obama hater who also regularly writes about the huge "successes" of Bush and Cheney.

The right loves him because he is a foreigner and it makes them feel validated to see him agree with them. They don't have a clue who Gardiner is or what likely drives him.

One would think that when Gardiner was writing a front page article for the National Review about how horrible the UN was, he would mention that as second generation follower of Moons, Gardiner's "religion" and "messiah" ordered that the "U.N. must be annihilated" so the Moon organization can "remake" it into Moon's vision.

Moon's front groups are working to get the UN to add a theocratic body/mechanism to its structure as part of his plan to theocratize the planet in his role as the "messiah." Don't laugh, the idea is still moving along at the UN and if he fails at that he has a back up plan.)

It is, of course, understandable that Gardiner would give blind allegiance to the Bush family since 41 and Neil travel the world honoring and promoting Moon's "messianic" mission.