Since 1935, an organization calling itself "The Family" has been able to operate unnoticed in the Washington Beltway. The organization got its start when a group of inheritance babies organized to attack Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal. Since its beginning, one goal of the organization has been to remain invisible. But that invisibility is disappearing because of the sensational sex lives of GOP South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford and Republican Nevada Senator John Ensign. From the time it was reported that Ensign and Sanford were members of The Family, there has been a new media revelation every week about this secretive group that recruits conservative politicos to further The Family's political agenda. Five years before National Public Radio or corporate media spent a minute exposing this creepy organization, investigative reporter Jeff Sharlet had written a book that detailed stories about The Family. Those stories should have caught the attention of any responsibly run media outlet, but investigative reporting in mainstream media has been dead for a decade.
It was the sex scandals of Family members Sanford and Ensign that put the operations of The Family on the media's front page.
Here's what those two GOP sex scandals brought to light: Ensign lived in an elegant townhouse on C Street in the Washington Beltway. It is the place where Ensign carried on his extramarital affairs. That townhouse was owned by The Family. It is the same townhouse where Sharlet found six U.S. congressman living together in 2003. It wasn't a normal rental arrangement. The rent they were paying was so low that it was apparent that The Family was providing a subsidized living arrangement for those politicians. Now the Ensign scandal is finally driving a possible investigation into what kind of political favors The Family expected of their low rent tenants.
I interviewed Sharlet in 2004. He seemed frustrated back then that no one was paying attention to the relationship between neo-con politicians for hire and The Family. What did The Family want from its well- connected political members?
Sharlet uncovered documents that show that The Family's political doctrine suggests that Stalin and Mao represent the best role models of leadership through absolute strength. Sharlet's documents show that a fundamental part of The Family's political beliefs is that strict authoritarian rule is the most acceptable form of government and that the hand picked elite politicos in their organization are the ones most capable of promoting that iron-fisted doctrine. Today the short list of the politicos revealed to be part of the Family includes Republicans James Inhofe, Sam Brownback, John Ashcroft, Ed Meese, and Jim Demint. That list is growing daily. National media such as NPR is now reporting stories about how The Family has by way of huge money and political influence propped up some of the world's most ruthless dictators to promote authoritarian policy. The Family's money and fingerprints have been traced to the support of mass murdering "Papa Doc" Duvalier and Somalia's doctor death, General Siad Barre.
After years of an effort to move this evolving story through the dull brain of traditional media, Sharlet has finally made it clear that what he has uncovered is far from tin foil-hat material. Stay tuned.