them and talk with them at theh reception which will be held outside immediately following.n. let's give them another hand. [applause] >> the national collegiate book collecting contest is hosted by the center for the book and the rare book and special collections division of the library of congress. the fellowship of american bib lo fillic societies and the antikaren booksellers' association of america. for more information about the contest, visit hq.abaa.org. >> every weekend booktv brings you 48 hours of history, biography and public affairs. here's a portion of one of our programs. >> why when we hear the president and others talking about the fact that we must make

government efficient for the people did our founding fathers actually design the government to be inefficient? ask yourself that question. because this is a model for inefficiency. but it was done deliberately. why? this -- because in order to have basic liberties you have to have the government with very little power. the more efficient the government is, the more liberties the individual has to give up to give to them. they cannot do their job efficiently unless they have the power to tell you what to do. very interesting, isn't it? and yet our society today generally believes that we have to have an efficient government

because we've been told time after time after time we must make the government efficient. but that is the road to loss of freedom. >> to watch this program in its entirety, go to booktv of.org. simply type the title or the author's name at the top left of the screen and click search. >> up next, jeff sharlet, contributing editor for harper's and "rolling stone" magazine, examines religious fundamentalism in american politics. he follows up on his last book, "the family," and focuses on a residence located on c street in washington, d.c. that has housed politicians who, according to the author, are interested in transforming their religious beliefs into legislation. jeff sharlet discusses his book at politics and prose bookstore in washington d.c.

>> good evening. i'm barbara meade, i'm one of the owners here at politics and prose. and i want to welcome jeff sharlet who has a new book that expands on a book that he wrote several years ago called "the family." jeff is an assistant professor of english at dartmouth, he's also a contributing editor for harper's and "rolling stone," and he writes as well for many magazines and newspapers, and you also may have heard him on npr or nbc nightly news talking about the issues of religion in politics. jeff has a few book, "c street," which is an eye-opening work of investigative reporting, and he uncovers a largely invisible world of fundamentalist politicians, sometimes called

the family, or international christian leadership or the fellowship. and their headquarters is right here in washington. actually, their headquarters were almost in our own neighborhood. back in the '60s this fundamentalist group set their eyes on ma comb street in cleveland park. and jeff unearthed this from the papers of the family. this is a quote. if handled properly, it could on a low-profile basis provide the following for our worldwide family: an orientation center to recruit politicians for a leadership led by god, a communications center for the worldwide work and housing for members of the corps, the

family. well, the deal fell through, but the housing needs were met by a building on capitol hill on c street which is called simply c street. and this is the house that most of us had never heard of until their three right-wing fundamentalists got caught in the headlights when they were engaged in some marital misdemeanors. [laughter] mark sanford, john ensign and chip pickering. that was what we read about in the papers at that time was the headline version, but jeff is here to tell us about all the clandestine inner workings of the group, and also you'd be surprised to know it's ambitious -- its ambitious plans

for expansion, global expansion. so here's jeff. [applause] >> thanks, barbara. i'm just going to put this iphone here to keep me honest with time, not because i'm texting while reading. [laughter] so thanks for coming out and joining me. i'm, you know, i've been writing about religion in politics for, i fez, well over a decade now, but i think the reason that i'm here and what maybe brings a lot of you out is sex and particularly the really unpleasant sex of john ensign, mark sanford and chip pickering, all of them sort of publicly detonated their marriages last year. and, you know, it's worth remembering that these weren't necessarily back men chers. senator ensign was making trips to iowa, sanford was a bright

presidential prospect before he redefined the appalachian trail as a path to argentina. [laughter] and then last and least in every way was chip pickering. chip pickering from mississippi in some ways had a greater impact on american life than of those two -- either of those two percent-known men -- better-known men. he was one of the architects of the 1996 telecommunications act, a massive privatization of the air waves which led us to a number of media monopolies and a lot of really boring radio and terrible journalism. he saw that as sort of unleashing the invisible hand which the members of this organization have always confused -- the invisible hand of the market they assume must be the visible hand of god -- invisible hand of god. they have a more economic perspective. now, chip pickering -- if he's known at all -- to most people he's known at the congressman

from borat. if you saw that movie, sasha barren cohen playing the idiot reporter borat makes his way to a meeting of america the christian. america as christian, this idea that doesn't exist in the constitution, this idea that madison and the founders specifically rejected, america as a christian nation was something all three of these guys either believed in or paid lip service to. but beyond the ideological ties between them, i was fascinated by the ties to this house on c street, 133 c street. i encourage everybody if you're in the neighborhood, it's across the from the library of congress. they are tax exempt as a church, and the irs has certain criteria about churches. churches are supposed to be

public. some of the residents there, senator jim demint, senator tom coburn, they would love to see you, worship with you, they would love to -- oh, i'm sorry, they would not love to see you or worship with you because the other thing that makes this organization distinct from the fundamentalists that a lot of us are familiar with, the pulpit pounders, the bible thumpers and also the quiet people who are just very, very devout and perhaps literal in their faith but grow out of -- i always like to remind especially liberal audiences, fundamentalism begins as a small d democratic tradition, this idea that no one's going to tell me how i'm going to worship god. i know the truth, i read it right here in the bible. that's one kind. well, there's another kind that begins with this organization, with this idea of an elite, this idea that goes back to 1935. this was the oldest, arguably most influential christian organization in america. begins with a revelation.

one night in april 1935, the founder believes comes to him, and this time he had new message that christianity had been getting it wrong for 2,000 years. the suffering, the weak, the down and out, that was boring. god was calling him to a higher place to be a missionary, to be a servant for the up and out as he called them, the top men, the key men. it wasn't that he didn't care about the poor, but he thought that god was telling him that the best way to help the weak is to help the strong. then they can dispense blessings to the rest of us. it's sort of a trickle-down religion. [laughter] he saw that at play in the case of senator ensign, governor sanford and chip pickering, all of whom had these affairs, all of which were covered up in part by this organization. in fact, the senator ensign affair's now the subject of a justice department

investigation. it was instructive because the you can hold in the case, senator ensign's best friend, and also a member of this organization. at first when he spoke out about it, he said the men of c street are great men, they're doing god's work, and i know they're going to help my family true -- through this. as time went on, that didn't turn out to be the case. he said, actually, i was wrong, it's about protecting c street, it's about protecting power. they threw the weaker brother underneath the bus. senator ensign is a senator, so they stuck with him. mark sanford did notly at c street but was a regular visitor. he sent his wife, jenny sanford -- her book is probably here in the store. it's a fascinating document. he sent her to c street to have the men kind of straighten her out when they were having

trouble in their marriage. maybe some of you do this, maybe, men, you are having trouble in your marriage and so you recruit another group of men that your wife doesn't know to explain to her her wifely duties. [laughter] that's how it worked for jenny. they explained to her that she should never express anger toward her husband, that that was something reserved for men. men could have those serious discussions, and you'll forgive me for being vulgar, but that she should never withhold sex from him because as one of god's choicen leaders -- chosen leaders, well, he had needs. he must be satisfied. it's that gross. [laughter] and chip pickering, you know, and least, he actually just met his mistress in the c street house registered as a church. she's a telecom heiress. it's sort of a telecom romance. that's sort of the seedy side of the story, and maybe that's why i get to be here and talk with

you today. because i had written this other book about this called "the family," and, you know, when i published that, you know, i was sort of going out there, and i wanted people to pay attention not to this kind of seediness, but to the international story, the way that they're involved overseas. you take that same approach, this idea that some politicians are chosen for power, and now you project that abroad. now you put some money and some muscle and some power behind that, and it becomes not just something kind of sleazy, but something difference. dangerous. so i had gone into the archives, there's 592 boxes of documents at the billy graham center archive. i happen to be jewish, and i was at this evangelical college, and one day someone came up to me and asked if i had heard about jesus. the campus of an evangelical college, and i wanted to give

that guy a gold star, he had found the jew. [laughter] i live inside these documents. i had lived with the o, but now i lived in the these documents and sort of unearthing the story, the theology. one of the stories i told was of their involvement in somalia. and this is an important one because the documents are so blunt about this, they're so candid. i have to refer to it as a recent new yorker piece that also dealt with this and dealt with the somalia story, the thing that the author, peter boyar, good journalist, he forgot to look at the documents. he didn't go to the archive. it's hard to tell a story when you don't do the research. and when we looked at the research, we found that this leader in somalia -- an unlikely prospect for christian conversion. he described himself as a koranic marxist. [laughter] he'd been a soviet client, he needed a new friend, and he wanted america to be that friend. and he said, i will pray to jesus, and here's what i want in

return, i want my defense budget doubled, i want meetings with the white house, and i want a little kind of hands-off policy while i crack down op this rebel group -- on this rebel group in the north. done, done and done. he got it all. he sent the fellowship a list of military supplies he was going to need. he said he was going to fight cubans in somalia. he cracked down on the rebel group in the north and then the one in the south, the one in the west, the one in the east, the one in the center. he destroyed the country, and it's never recovered. that, to me, is a more important story than senator ensign. so i tried to lead with that story when the first book came out, and i remember one radio producer saying, what's a somalia? [laughter] so i've learned. that's why we're starting with c street. and it is important because you want to follow this kind of the silliness of this religion but carry out the ideas. what are the consequences? which is important because many

people get involved in this movement with the best of intentions. they don't set out to create murder and genocide in somalia. they want to help. just like senator coburn, for instance, who lives in c street wanted to help senator ensign coffer up his affair before cover up his affair by paying off his misstress. he didn't want to talk about it because, some people remember, he's an obstetrician. so we look forward to senator ensign's announcement. [laughter] but the principle underlying that, the theology underlying that is summed up, the leader of the group, doug coe, very amiable guy i don't quite sees the consequences of what he's trying to do, but he says the more invisible you can make your organization, the more influence it will have. which is true. which is why we have laws about

disclosure. you look at the minutes of the meeting. no, we don't do that. we'll be more effective if we don't register, which is true. that's why we have the laws. but it's that, you know, there are a lot of groups in washington that are kind of walking that shady line, right? it's the nature of the influence that becomes important. and that's where you have to understand the theology. i want to understand doug coe again. here he is teaching on scripture. you say, hey, you know, jesus said you've got to put him before mother, father, brother, sister. hitler, lenin, mao, that's what they taught the kids. mao even had the kids killing their own mother and father, but it wasn't murder. it was for building the new nation, the new kingdom. now, be that was a one-off, that was just a poorly-chosen example, i wouldn't be talking about it. but when i lived with the group, it was a drum beat. look at the leadership lessons of hitler, lenin, mao.

any bad guy. they say it's not their ends we admire, it's the means. the means also being problematic. [laughter] you can find video now, actually, that i gave to nbc news of coe talking about the great friendship between hitler, goebbels and hemler and look at all they published -- accomplished. some folks defending the group say, you know, it's just a metaphor, jeff. why are you so harsh on us? it's just a metaphor. to which i respond, it's not just journalists like me writing for harper's magazine, the other magazine really cracking down on this group is the far-right fundamentalist world magazine doing terrific investigative reporting because they know that hitler, stalin and mao are not a good metaphor for jesus. you can have a lamb, a lion, there's lots of possibilities, but we take that metaphor, and if we talk about what

fundamentalism means, taking a metaphor and making it concrete. and you fall into these relationships with leaders overseas. and in the new book what i was able to do that i couldn't do with the last book was to follow the money out of c street, following senator demint to lebanon where -- when i raised with one member of the group the concern about some of the anti-semitism i was encounter, the answer was some of my best friends are jewish followers of jesus. not even jews. there's a good word for jewish followers of jesus, it's christian. [laughter] they can go with that. but, again, there's am a religious ill literacy that becomes dangerous. and i want to share with you an example from the book. i thought a lot of these guys just kind of traced the money out there around the world.

there's actually an excerpt from it in mother jones magazine right now. a member of the group recently pled guilty to obstruction of justice. the president of sudan whom the congressman said just melted his heart. melted his heart. bashir, some of you may know, is the first head of state to be indicted for genocide in this darfur. let's not be hasty and do sanctions on sudan. let's engage him with business. let's love him to death with business. let's do business with this oil-rich regime. anyway, he's now face 15g years, so we don't have to worry about him. we do have to worry about uganda. a country not a lot of people pay attention to, but the family did x. they did so, again w the best of intentions. the man who kind of forged that

relationship between the family and uganda considers himself a liberal, was pursuing what he thought was humanitarian work, was supporting a bright and shining hope for this african nation. 1986 when he began sort of facilitating foreign aid, making connections for the new president many washington. in washington. the president had been a leftist, the family wrote in a document it's important that we keep this country christian. and so it has become christian and a revival nation. and you know that christianity in uganda? it's actually done a lot of great things. it kit grade things. -- did great things. a country that suffered under idi amin has had some kind of peace for 24 years. in fact, the family take credit for bringing peace. -- takes credit for bringing peace. what begins as democracy ends in dictatorship. he's clinging to power, he's

becoming more vulnerable, and he's reaching for straw men whom he can fight against and what they've done is come up with something called the anti-homosexuality bill. you may have heard about this. the most draconian anti-gay law in the world, hands down. death penalty for homosexuality, for having gay sex more than once. one time you just get life in prison. what i'm doing right now talking and what you're doing listening? this seven years in prison. if you are straight and there's a gay person in this room and you know about it and you don't report them in 24 hours, three years in prison. now, i went to uganda because i wanted to speak to the author of the bill who is sort of -- you might call him sort of the leader of the ugandan c street. he came to america, studied in arlington with the family, calls the family's american leader in uganda his mentor. calls senator inhofe who visits

often as a representative of the family a great man who is teaching uganda to manage themselves on the principles of jesus, the political philosophy of jesus. david behottie, this man's name is. i went over to uganda, i spent a lot of time with him. some of the american politicians say, well, it's gotten out of hand -- heard that before -- but, you know, he misunderstood. that's not what it's really about. and it's not really going to be death penalty. i said, well, david, this bill sounds kind of genocidal. he says, no, we're just going to kill the gays. [laughter] and i said your bill only has the death penalty if you have gay sex more than once, so really you're not being biblical. he says, it's not a perfect world. we live in a democracy. step by step, we'll get there. we'll get beyond uganda because he says he's liaising with the family parliament groups in

tanzania, he's losing this -- using this network that they built. whether or not they intended it, they have put the guns in his hands, and he says, hey, i'm just -- you know, when i shoot, i'm just expressing the biblical ideas that we share. i want to close with a passage from the book that maybe shows what's at stake. what's at stake in this. i'm not actually -- i spent a lot of time with him, but i want to show you the other side of this, the people who are already running from this bill. the bill hasn't passed. you'll hear apologists say, well, no one's been arrested. every single gay person i met in uganda has been arrested several times. it's catch and release until the killing starts. i'm going to read a story here about a young man named blessed, out young gay man. this is how he came out. very devout christian. probably by standards most people in this room

fundamentalist. but he considered his homosexuality a gift from god just like anyone else's. around the time blessed became blessed -- he changed his name once his family banished him -- around the time blessed became blessed, he began attending pentacostal churches where you sang and danced and maybe experienced the gift of tongues, babbling in languages granted to you by god. the songs were american as often as african. the churches were sprinkled with white men, and there was a lot of laying on of hands. it felt cosmopolitan, international, modern. blessed's favorite pastor was a man named martin who appeared in music videos in uganda and in pulpits in america where he was a favorite of pastor rick warrens. every saturday night he led a service, a party really called prime time. the university's outdoor pool. the fun even though technically it was anti-fun, an abstinence

rally. but blessed -- and plenty of straight kids -- were there to cruise. it was hard not to. there was usually at least a thousand students, girls in their saturday best, boys dressed in american hip-hop, their pants low and their shirts giant and their young faces lean. and martin, he was beautiful too, golden skin, the handsomest bald man you ever saw. a smooth man beckoning them from the stage across the pool that glowed in the night. the band thumped and martin called as if the kids themselves might actually walk on the water. the story he told was always the same, sex. the great e sex. it's going to be awesome. sex, it'll be wonderful some day. sex, wait. sex, wait just a little bit longer. and then everybody would jump, a thousand, sometimes 2,000 young ugandans hopping in time as high as they could, holding on to one another unless they fall in the pool giggling, holy laughter, some called it. it was a gift they believed came from the holy ghost.

and some had heard about holy kissing too. not carnal, the spirit in the flesh. there were gay boys and straight kids who might peer around the bend, all of them waiting, of course, abstaining. all of them not having sex together except when they were. it was so hot that blessed -- but then came the day blessed had to choose a side. it was 2007, and he was in court as a spectator and supporter. the case being heard was called victor hue casa versus attorney general. victor, a transman born female, living male, interested in girls taught blessed the sweet boy to be a man, a gay man without ever meeting him. like blessed, as a child she knew she was attracted to children of the same sex. she'd joined an intercostal american church hoping in the ecstasy she would find the resolution of her desire.

but she was not as skilled at blessed as leading two lives. she dressed as victor. she couldn't think dressed as a girl. a path determined she was possessed by a male spirit and asked the flock to help him heal her. the exorcism took place at the altar in front of a thousand christians, boys and men laying on hands, speaking in tongues as women in the pews swayed and sang for liberation as the pastor called it, her freedom. they took her arms, gently and then firmly, and then they held her and tripped her -- stripped her. slowly, garment by garment, praying other each piece of cloth. she had bound her breasts, they bared them. i cried, and every time they cried her it was called liberation. when she stood before them completely naked, the men's hands roaming over her body and then inside, they said that was holy too. and then they locked her in a room and raped her for a week. this is known as a corrective, a medical procedure, a cure. when it was all over, the pastor

declared that the church had freed her, and maybe in a sense they had. victor no longer believed the demon was inside him, it was in that church. victor became a man determined to prevent what had happened to him from happening again. in the 2003 he co-founded an lgbt rights group, an incredibly brave thing to do in that country. in 2008 police raided his house. they didn't find him. a friend was there. they took her down to the station, they stripped her. you look like a man, we're going to prove you're a woman. it happened again. the plan wasn't lesbian, it wasn't gay, it was human, blessed would say. hue casa sued and never was a lawsuit more like a gift of the spirit, the romance of the rule of law. blessed, of course, was a romantic boy. he thought the trial was

exciting. he wanted to be there, and so did his friends. blessed could hardly wait. what he didn't know was that his pastor, martin, was gathering an opposing force. blessed, with his head in the clouds, he hadn't paid attention. when he walked into the courtroom, he could not have faced a starker choice. blessed called his church friends, pastor himself saw him and smiled. blessed looked down at the t-shirt he had chosen for the occasion, a rainbow. he looked at the other side of the room, his gay friends looked back, some of them sighed. they knew how it was. if he chose martin today, they would forgive him tomorrow. if he didn't -- the truth was he didn't know. all that he would follow, all that he would lose was beyond the 17-year-old's imagination. i don't know if i have a very strong heart, he told me. i don't know if i'm a tough of man. how did you make your choice? he gave me a smile, the mask for

all that he had lost. i had a breakthrough. breakthrough in ugandan church is a spiritual term, a gift from the hole low ghost, grace in whatever shape it is needed. i got courage. blessed sat down with the gays. that's how blessed came out. the pastor who's received $50,000 in u.s. federal aid to fight aids called for a cure for blessed as well. he was beaten badly. i visited the pastor's church, and i asked some of the young people there would you be willing to kill a gay person yourself? and the answer one woman said, well, maybe if we did it together? this like it was a date. there's a happy ending to this story. victor won the lawsuit even in this country where the idea of genocide has been set on simmer. you may be able to kill gay people, but you have to do it legally. you can kick down doors, but

only if you have a warrant. he won. he won by invoking his rights as a citizen. he won, also, and i think you can say blessed won by invoking their rights as christians. i don't want to put this whole thing in the context of christianity, but that's the great thing about fundamentalism that i want to close with. fundamentalism has this small d democratic tradition that i spoke of. i end the book with a fundamentalist street preacher who in 2004 went to the rnc in new york, he was going to vote for the republicans but he was going to protest them. he said the poor people he ministered to needed a lot more than that. that's what scripture said. so i said, well, why are you here? i said, well, i want to give god a voice. you don't think god has a voice in madison square garden? no, no, i want to make god a part of the crowd. i want to give him a voice in the crowd, i want him to be a part of the noise, this phrase that james buchanan -- maybe the

worst president in american history -- contribute today this one good thought. i like the noise of democracy. i like the debates, the arguments, the romance of the rule of law. that is our solution, i think, to the fundamentalism of c street, that solution that is available to all of us whether we are believers or nonbelievers. i'll stop there. thanks very much. [applause] >> could you go to the mic, please? it's right around the corner from you over here. it's right here. >> hello. may i start? i'm wondering, i'm concerned and i think you are as well with the fundamentalism in the military. and i'm wondering if c street influenced the military or the

military influenced c street or where is the connection if there is one? and could you talk a little bit about the fundamentalism in the military to start with to set the background? >> yeah, thanks. there's a long chapter in the book about you sort of follow the money out of c street, and you end up in sort of the darkest manifestation, uganda, and then you bring it home in the u.s. military where the situation has gotten to be where, i mean, i spoke to a three-star general who didn't know what the first amendment said and didn't care. officers who said that they're fighting holy war in afghanistan. you can see video of the top chaplain in afghanistan shouting to his troops, we are the new israel, we are the new israel, comparing the u.s. military to special forces for god. i spoke to a man that drove a bradley fighting vehicle, that's a fast-moving tank. it was with a special forces unit calling itself the faith element. they had the translator paint jesus killed mohamed in big red

letters. and every family or person that took a shot at them and people who were not insurgents, you can imagine, did. it's a tank, it wasn't going to get hurt. he turned the big guns and blew up their house, destroyed almost a whole block. i asked him, how did you do it? he misunderstood the question. he thought, how could i do it too maybe? the i don't know. he said, i was spiritually armored, i couldn't get hurt because the pastor had given me a special screening of mel gibson's "passion of the christ." he's been promoted. i should say they are kind of distinct movements, a kind of hard-edged fundamentalism. c street represents a much softer cell, and even the story i tell in uganda, the americans are quite embarrassed by what's going on in you began da. that's not what they wanted to happen, but they're not quite taking responsibility for what they've wrought there.

the military got guns. it's much rougher. there is a connection, and the way the story began for me, christian embassies, a group prosthelytized to the pentagon, that's fine, you can do that. a video featuring seven officers testifying for christ in uniform on duty, and if there's any military people in the room, you know how big crossing a line that is. well, there's a dod inspector general who kind of took a look at this and kind of gave them a slap on the wrist, a whitewash. in fact, most of them were promoted. so you look at who is this dod guy, he happens to be on the board of the fellowship foundation, one of the nonprofits connect with the the family. not only that, he started christian embassy in the pentagon. he investigated himself and found himself not guilty. so there's a connection, but they are running on parallel strands. what's frightening is when you have those kinds of different kinds of fundamentalisms and political fundamentalism. i want to distinguish that from the ordinary people, good faith

out there. political fundamentalisms converging. what's happening in the military is dangerous. i spoke to another three-star general afraid to put his name to his words because he fears his camera. i can't even use the language he used. he said, it's -- we've been reduced to an f-ing clown show, and you see it all throughout the military. the vast majority of military people are doing their jobs, but there's a concentrated core that thinks they're fighting holy war. >> could you do your next book on the military? >> well, there's a long chapter in this book, probably more than you want to know. it's in there. >> i'll just be brief. a year ago i filed -- sent an e-mail to the d.c. tax office complaining about the tax-exempt status of this so-called house on c street, and about six months later i checked and they had revoked most of their tax-exempt status. and for all the d.c. taxpayers here who pay their property

taxes last september 15th, i checked the web site today. c street is $8,000 behind in their taxes as of right now. [laughter] they paid nothing in taxes on september 15th, they still owe about 3,000 from their march 31st taxes, and they seem to be giving themselves a great big stimulus tax cut. [laughter] >> well, thank you, vince tracy. and, you know, that's, that is a citizen's response. what's this? >> that's all the info. >> oh, great. thank you. well -- in an envelope, you've got to be careful. [laughter] >> on the back of a hundred dollar bill. [laughter] >> the thing with c street house is they're still registered as a church, and it's a fascinating group. and, again, this points to why this is not a fight between believers and nonbelievers. another group that's doing the same thing that vince did is

called clergy voice, an interdenominational voice of pastors out in ohio who think that c street is giving church a bad name. they are pressing the irs to reconsider that, and we'll see what comes of their cause. >> hello. the family, or the new yorker showed the family in a way different light, much better, i'd say. and it's a very credible magazine, it kind of conflicts with your point of view. do you mind explaining? >> it doesn't -- well -- [laughter] i don't want to pick too much of a fight with the new yorker. but i will. [laughter] on this case. you know, a week before that piece came out i got a call from a fact check or, and i was a little concerned because they'd had an advanced copy of this thing, and it gets into the complications of publishing and so on. i said, well, you know, you guys are doing research, yeah?

fact checker said, oh, yeah. mr. boyar did his own archival research. oh, no, no, he had those documents. i said, really? because they're restricted in the archive. i got them before they were restricted, you can't get them now. oh, well, he must have got a special exception. really? i used to work for the chronicle of education, that's a real issue to academic researchers. so i brought that up to them. about an hour later i get an e-mail, correction, mr. boyar did not visit the archives. documents were provided to him by a member of the family. that's not research. when you go and you talk to an organization and you say, hey, how do you see yourself, that's a q&a. it's useful. i'm glad for what he did, the access they gave him. you go and look at some of the discussions the group was having working with a pr man named a. larry ross who was in correspondence between the ugandans and the americans

promoting the new yorker as a bigger magazine than harper's, an excerpt i had had pleasured which was true. and one of the things i found most disturbing because i know there are people in the family who are concerned about that case in uganda, would not like it to be like that. someone suggested, you know, sharlet is not the problem, the press isn't the problem. this guy in uganda proposing this idea and doing it as one of us and not being held accountable, that's the problem. that's what's making us look bad. and the answer was sharlet is the enemy. i would argue that's a case of misplaced priorities and something that should have been in the new yorker story and something else that should have been in the story was that bill isn't dead. and the new yorker story made it look like that. that's incredibly dangerous. there's people in you began da right now -- uganda who are in if danger. david called me after it came out, and he said, you know, this new yorker guy, he never

interviewed me, never asked me what i was doing. those questions need to be asked. so with respect to peter boyar who's done a lot of great journalism over the years, i think in this case he dropped the ball. >> i think tying david behottie to the -- >> no, it's not. and let me clarify why. david is the secretary of the ugandan fellowship parliament. i'm guessing his group include inhofe, ashcroft, rick warren. the leader of the group there, the american leader, is his mentor. calls himself -- >> well, obama was a mentor, reverend wright was his mentor as well. >> be i asked behottie, is there a connection between this bill and the fellowship? he said, no, there's no connection at all. the bill is the fellowship. we wrote it. he brought it to the fellowship,

an international gathering of international leaders ahead of time and said does anyone have any opposition to this? now, here we have a debate. he says he got a green light. after it became controversial, they say, oh, no, we cautioned him even though the american leaders in uganda still say we neither support or condemn the bill. with that, i think we should leave it aside and go on to more questions. if you want to talk more about it afterwards, be glad to. >> can you tell us what have been the major sources of funding? >> yeah. it's kind of interesting. you look at the tax records, and for the group of interlocking nonprofits and one called the fellowship foundation is sort of the mother ship. 17 million, 9 million, not really -- 19 million, not really huge sums for an organization like this. historically, most of the money has come from, you know, these characters i sort of think of as the little big men out there who have made a fortune with a

gravel quarry, with a supermarket chain, they're not really connected. and the idea of playing golf with a senator, that's very appealing to them, and you can raise a lot of money that way. that said, there are other sources, for instance, the seaters out in arlington was purchased with donations from tom phelps, the defense contractor. a number of oilmen have made their resources available to the group over the years. they see the value of those connections. but the real money or not the real money, but the money that's hard to track is the money that's off the books. what the group sometimes calls the financial man to man method which is to say i give you a gift. we don't record it. that, by the way, is how the payoffs to ensign's misstress took place in several lump sums of $12,000 which is the limit beyond which you'd have to report it, gifts to the mistress and her family to be quiet.

>> as someone who has a personal interest, i'm going to ask this question because your last book and this book have probably publicized people who have a lot of power and might get angry about it. do you ever feel personally threatened? have you gotten any letters or hate mail because of your reportage? >> well, i got a promotion in the family. 2004-2005, something like that, former senator dan coates referred to me as an enemy of jesus. and as you heard me just say, i am now the enemy. [laughter] so moving up in the world. they're, you know, recognizing my work. they're coming out to join us and talk with us. last night i was at the press club, and i had a nice contingent from the family and actually some guys i've attempt today stay in dialogue with and say, look, omar al-bashir melts your heart, could i really be that much worse than a

genocidal maniac? if you can pursue reconciliation with them, you can pursue it with me. i do believe these guys do pursue it with the best of intentions. that said, i've never been in any danger that i know of, i don't think i would be. the real risk the overseas where friends of the family aren't as gentle. and i think particularly in the book i write about senator coburn in lebanon doing his messianic muslim work. and part of the way i told that story was a project, a family project in northern lebanon, a school that presented itself to the public as it's going to help lebanese kids learn english and get to america. these were all muslim kids. what the school was really about was teaching the principles of jesus. i learned this from a man who put his name to his words, and he budget afraid. he knew he was going to be in danger. this was his home village. he'd done well in canada, he returned. looking around, he said, this is

kind of strange. even then he was like, well, i don't quite agree with this, and it seems like we should be honest about what we're doing here. maybe the english balances it out. he got upset when some family leaders including senator coburn visited the school and some of the businessmen said, were introduced to his class of orphans. these kids aren't orphans. they're not orphans. they were raising money by telling the american visitor these were orphans. that was enough for him. he had met doug coe, that had been the leader of the group, and he'd been to washington, that had been troubling to him, so he decided to speak out. and just this last week i learned he was dealing with some rougher characters. so now he's facing death threats. he's hired a bodyguard. he's being discredited, he's being told by his friends by being told people are saying that he's the family's friends in lebanon. and, again, this is not coburn

doing this, these -- and you can say this is guilt by association, but i'd like to see senator coburn step up and say, you know what? that's not what i meant, that's not what i was teaching there. people are saying that he's working for the jew, jeff sharlet. that's yet another promotion as far as i'm concerned. that's the real danger or guys like blessed and that story. victor. those people are in danger. the family is in a position to do something good, to do something great there. i spoke with one man who says there's all this attention between access and accountability. if we hold our foreign connections accountable for their actions, then we'll lose access, and how can we do good work? how can we help the poor by helping the strong? it begs the question at what point do you say, the time has come to use accountability? this in uganda, the time has come to play the cards, and i think that's what we're waiting for them to do before blessed or someone else gets hurt. >> okay.

last, last two questions. >> one of the parts of the first book, "the family," that i found most interesting is is the sort of bipartisan nature -- >> yeah. >> this -- of the family. and lest we think this is inhofe, coburn, sanford and so on were all republicans, could you just comment on their connection to, say, hillary, the clintons during the, during that presidency and her times of troubles and some of the other democrats? there are a couple of democrats. >> yeah, there's a number and always has been. in the past those democrats were not as liberal, strom thurmond comes to mind. [laughter] or my favorite, robertson, senator of virginia. and pat robertson's father. he was a leader of the group in the '50s, the dixiecrat from virginia, segregationist dixiecrat. now you see guys bike bart

stupak, conservative but not far right wing. democrat, lived in c street, represented mike mcintyre pretty much as far right wing as it gets, democrat from north carolina. senator mark pryor of arkansas who has since decides that he doesn't want to be associate with the the group anymore but when i spoke to him originally said he had learned the meaning of bipartisanship from them. jesus didn't come to take sides, he came to take over. pryor, by the way, just to understand him as a democrat, he is anti-gay, anti-abortion, pro-war, anti-labor, anti-health care, and he has some other enlightened views. but he is a democrat. but that's what's interesting about this group. they've survived this long because they're not rigid in that sense, and that's, again, how you want to define it differently than that kind of

populace fundamentalism. the fundamentalism is the idea that every decision must be filtered through jesus. the idea as people explain it to me that jesus is central to every religion, one man saying why they're not indoctrinated. just look at it, jeff. jesus is essential to christianity, okay? jesus is central to islam. that's a stretch. [laughter] jesus is important in islam, but he's not central. and can the -- the real kicker is when he said jesus is essential to judaism. [laughter] that was interesting to me, and i said, no, no, he's not. jesus comes at the end, right? i said, well, no, it kind of cuts off before we get to jesus. but jews revere jesus, right? i hate to break it to you, it's just not at the party. [laughter] but it's that idea that they feel like they're being open-minded, they feel like they're being ecumenical, they are pursuing that with the best of intentions, and they say,

hey, look, we're bringing republicans and democrats together. you know, and i think in some ways your attitudes toward this group might be shaped by your attitudes towards bipartisanship. if you feel it's worth it at any cost, this group's for you. but if you feel that political parties and politicians should stand for ideas, that the noise of democracy emerges from the sharp elbows of debate, then i think you're going to have a problem with the ideological approach of the organization. >> okay. last question. >> so one interesting development in the african situation has been the emergence of this relatively homogeneous and almost uniform notion of cannism, pronouncing on what is and what is not authentically african. gays have come to be seen as

this moral intrusion. so i'm wondering if you could talk a little bit about how ideological context this rhetoric of what kind of populist, like, post-colonialism operates and, like, what the family has been doing with those associated with the family. >> yeah, yeah. and i should clarify martin, who was a pastor in that story, not a part of the family. >> okay. >> you know, what you're looking at uganda there is that convergence of many different strands of thought. there's senator inhofe, and then there's martin, you know? and there's all sorts of other guys. there's a lot of issues there. and certainly what's interesting in you uganda and elsewhere in africa is homosexuality has come to be a metaphor for the west. and you see people responding to what they feel is the heavy hand of europe and america by understanding it through something that is taboo in many

of those countries. and i want to make a distinction between taboo and homophobe ya. taboo in you began da, as the president said, we just used to not talk about this. or as the minister of ethics and integrity, the chairman of the family's parliament group explained to me, he says, this issue began around 2003, 2004. this is when homophobe ya became a problem, activist hate. but it begins expressing itself as this kind of antagonism toward the west, and it makes it very difficult to respond. and, frankly, i think, again ark lot of lgbt rights groups, human rights groups have, unfortunately, made the situation worse sometimes. you look at germany which, i believe, offered uganda $148 million to scrap the bill, and david rightly says, hey, what about democracy? how would you like in america if china came in and just said, you know what? we can tell you're down on your luck, we're going to give you

some money. they invoke sovereignty which is a different issue. there is the question of human rights, and there's a question of you can da's -- uganda's department which is so dependent on foreign aid. the way this becomes a met to have, that's what's the most frightening thing. and when i talk about the idea of genocide set in a simmer, the real danger when i spoke to ugandan's there is not actually a mass crackdown on gay ugandans because, you know, behottie at one point suggested that rachel mad doe and i were a gay couple. [laughter] to give you a sense of his deep understanding of what he's up against. minister of ethics who said that homosexuality is attempted genocide against africa said there may be as many as 100 of them in uganda at this very moment. so, you know, they don't see that. what could happen and i think

what the fear is that the country who has been held together by a strong man is a country that could face civil war at a certain point. there's a lot of different ethnic rivals, and what's happened already is charging someone with hope sexuality's become a very effective weapon. doesn't matter what they are. call them gay, and you can take them out. when that explodes to an ethnic group, that's when you get genocide. i don't think that'll happen, but here we are again on the brink, you know? we always say, never again. here's our chance. we know that someone's planning it, he's well directed -- corrected, he's powerful. there's an opportunity to step in, and i don't think we should let the language of neo-colonialism which overlooks the 500,000 ,000 gay ugandans wo are also citizens of that country and who also have human rights. thank you very much. [applause] >> for more information visit

the author's web site, jeff sharlet.com. >> this weekend on "after words," biographer nigel hamilton profiles the 12 u.s. presidents elected since world war ii, their personalities, motivations, achievements and failures. he's interviewed by presidential historian richard norton smith this weekend on booktv on c-span2. >> history, biography and public affairs. you're watching booktv on c-span2. tonight on booktv:

>> every weekend booktv brings you 48 hours of history, biography and public affairs. here's a portion of one of our programs. >> hi. who do you think would be the best choice for our next republican candidate for president? [laughter] with a real chance to win and even though i think john mccain's a good american, would make the best candidate? >> i, i really, you know, i have this thing on my show called the duck of the day, and i know my producers are rolling on c-span, and they're going to get me with the duck of the day.

i don't know who the best person is right now, but here is my answer. i'm not worried about that yet. i know everyone wants the next, you know, the next reagan to walk in the room, the next, you know, figure who's going to lead us, you know, out of the darkness. i'm not worried about it. i truly believe, and i've been in how many cities? fifteen cities, now, in just a little over a week and a half. i am thrilled about what i'm seeing from the ground. it's going to happen the way it's supposed to happen. i have great faith. i have this cross on everybody knows i wear. [applause] ..