[Here it is, John!]




A phone
call to the Polk County, Iowa, Republicans confirmed that Payer, a
failed candidate for the state legislature, is an elected officer in
the group's central committee. He also maintains the party's official
Web site, PolkGOP.com.



Payer
was inspired to buy my name, he said, when he didn't like my reporting
on an event that triggered a small scandal in 2004: the “Crown Of
Peace” ritual on Capitol Hill, honoring the controversial Reverend Moon
as the new Messiah.



Just to
recall: Senator John Warner (R-Virginia) said he'd been “deceived” into
hosting Moon's ceremony naming himself humanity's new savior to replace
Jesus. As featured on ABC's “World News Tonight,” politicians did more
than just pay witness. They bowed down and wore white gloves, bringing
to Moon a crown and flowing robes resembling King George III's.



The king
part was what I found interesting. The gentleman with the monarchial
sense of style was no minor character. He owns The Washington Times and
calls in favors from American presidents.



As for
the Des Moines GOP's Payer: the man seems to be doing double duty in a
quest to open doors in Washington for Moon, where the Reverend wants to
end the separation of church and state. Moon's major American Web
sites, including FamilyFed.org, are registered in Payer's name,
according to a WHOIS search. And his Iowa influence groups are
registered to Payer, according to corporate filings.



Payer
complained that I tried to make Moon look “odd.” And in my fixation on
the crowning, he said, I ignored the evening's spirit of love, in which
local civic leaders received plaques.



“You
gave it a perspective, or a view, that was cast so diabolically,” Payer
told me. “As if there was something to do with becoming the King of
America or something.”



(In my
defense, I went with the spin from a top Moon official, who wrote in a
March 2004 memo: “The crowning means America is saying to [Moon]:
'Please become my king.” The memo was reported in the newsletter of
Americans United For Church & State.)



I suggested that another Web address — say, eDavidPayer.com or DavidPayer.us — might be a great forum for his ideas.



“No, no, it's about you,” he Malkoviched. “That's what it's about.”



So
that's something to look forward to: a Web site put up about a
journalist by the Unification Church, whose leader, Rev. Sun Myung
Moon, is on record as calling for an “automatic theocracy to rule the
world.”



Is that
something the Polk County GOP will want to get behind? And do Red State
voters in Des Moines know their officials, supposedly hard at work
defending American traditions, are linked to a New Age guru's scheme to
use the United States Senate to outshine Jesus Christ?