Posted on 11/24/2009 11:52:15 AM PST by NutCrackerBoy
You may recognize these names from recent headlines: Sen. John Ensign, Rep. Bart Stupak and Rep. Joe Pitts. Stupak and Pitts have become familiar names through the media's health care overhaul coverage; their abortion funding amendment introduced an 11th-hour twist as the House of Representatives approached a vote on a landmark health care bill.
Ensign was the focus of media attention over his affair with a campaign staffer. Just last night, a Nevada man disclosed that he found out about his wife's affair with the state's junior senator — his best friend — via a text message.
The common factor among these political players is their involvement with the Family, a secretive fellowship of powerful Christian politicians that centers on a Washington, D.C., townhouse. Investigative journalist Jeff Sharlet has written extensively about the influential group in his book The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power.
Sharlet returns to Fresh Air to talk to host Terry Gross about Ensign, Stupak and Pitts, and about new developments concerning the Family.
Since 2003, Sharlet has been an associate research scholar at New York University's Center for Religion and Media, where he has taught graduate seminars in journalism and the history of American religion. He has also spoken on religion, politics and media at colleges and universities across the country. At NYU, Sharlet created TheRevealer.org, a review of religion and the media.
Jeff Sharlet is also the author of Killing the Buddha: A Heretic's Bible, a travelogue based on a year he and Peter Manseau spent exploring the margins of faith in America.
What's this all about, anyway? It sounds like a straight hit piece on conservatives...I never heard of "The Family". Terry Gross made it sound icky.
Nor of Sharlet.
Oh, it’s NPR. Never mind.
But this here...Her way of connecting it to current events was to say that sex scandals among the politicians associated with this group have got people talking about it. Huh?? Clearly meant to smear opponents of health care reform.
“It sounds like a straight hit piece on conservatives.”
Well I can tell you from inside sources and my own encounter that Ensign is a bit icky. He has the senatorial look and votes ok, but he has never been known as a bright bulb. That is the problem with voting in Country Club Republicans, they tend to be a bit weak in the knees.
However, if it is any consolation I have a hundred times as much dirt on Harry Reid and he is the scum of the earth comparatively.
And here I thought we were going to get a real article about the Bilderberg group or something.
I’m just excited that the masons aren’t (directly) taking the heat on this one. (Not that some of these guys aren’t masons; they probably are.)
PID interview with Jeff Sharlet-MP3
Worth a listen.
Sooooooooo......If “the family” is so powereful, how did conservatives lose the house, the senate, and the presidency. This guy is an idiot.
Thank you NutCrackerBoy, you made my day! :D
“Sooooooooo......If “the family” is so powereful, how did conservatives lose the house, the senate, and the presidency. This guy is an idiot.”
Bart Stupak (D)Michigan congressman is far from a conservative and he is a democrat. He lives in a room in a house owned by the organization when in Washington.
“their (Stupak and Pitts) abortion funding amendment introduced an 11th-hour twist as the House of Representatives approached a vote on a landmark health care bill.”
“Social justice”, NPR style: Opposition to abortion funding is a travesty, but restricting mammogram funding and gutting Medicare to help hide the cost of Obama Care is “reducing waste and abuse”.
I guess NPR just gives an open mike to people who are having hallucinations? Like that guy who drones on for hours and hours and hours about the imaginary town in Minnesota...
According to the replies to this thread, the group that is the subject of Jeff Sharlet's book does exist.
Obviously, I am not so clear on what point this article is trying to make. I read some of the other comments, and even those are not quite clear. What is his stance on religion and media? I don’t even think there is Christianity in our media (other that trashing it). I guess if you are Muslim there is favorable coverage, but what exactly does this family have to do with it? This is the first I have heard of it.
I am not particularly interested in the author. His books explore the "margins of faith in America". He could be a credible reporter. I am predisposed against such work because there is already WAY too much Christian bashing; nonetheless, as a seeker of truth, I don't fault the basis of doing such research.
What I find interesting is that these secret societies like freemasons so often are the subject of paranoid rantings, to the point of laughability, yet it is also true that such societies can have influence. To the extent that this group The Family are about free markets and family values, I happen to agree with their goals.
In short, they have done me no harm. They seem somewhat unsavory on the margins. If the George Soros version of this were to be exposed and ridiculed, it would not make me unhappy.
From what I understand, admittedly extremely little, what people do NOT like about The Family is that one of the main tenets is that the members are CHOSEN to be LEADERS, and therefore the moral rules & regulations that apply to little peon people do NOT apply to them.
Governor Sanford, for instance, compared himself to King David, and somewhere I read that Jeff Sharlet said that the King David reference is "pure Family belief" -- that the members are SO pure & good & CHOSEN, that just like King David, RULES APPLY TO OTHER PEOPLE, the peons, and not to elevated souls like them.
It's been months since I explored The Family -- I did so because I was so surprised to learn that The Family held many long prayer vigils for Hillary Clinton, during Monica Days.
I feel that SEIU and Acorn are such societies, but they are hiding in plain sight. On the outside they seem to be what they say they are, but once you get past the candy coating you find a vast, political, corrupt, progressive machine. The libs boast thousands of these groups. The conservatives may have one. So why are they trying to concentrate on the one, and not the thousands? I guess the same theory applies to media, Fox is the lone wolf here, they beat to a different drummer, so they must be destroyed!
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