“Let me state at the beginning that I am agnostic as to whether former President Bush drank the Rev. Sun Myung Moon’s “holy wine.” But history is filled with religious stories that, even if not true, deliver lessons. Lesson later. Story now.

The Rev. Michael Jenkins, president of Moon’s Unification Church in the United States, says Bush did drink the wine. Bush’s spokesmen neither confirm nor deny the story. One told John Gorenfeld, author of the recent book Bad Moon Rising, that he would not dignify the question by answering it. Another, Jim McGrath, didn’t deny it to me, but he did point out an apparent error in Jenkins’ account.

That entertaining account can be found at www.youtube.com. [..] In the video, Jenkins begins by mentioning that Bush, despite objections by his advisers, praised Moon last year at a Washington gala for the Washington Times, the conservative newspaper founded, subsidized and owned by Moon. Jenkins says the praise was quoted in the Times. It wasn’t.

Then Jenkins moves into the more interesting part. He recounts with the cadence and hand gestures of a veteran preacher a meeting at the Bush Library at College Station between Bush and members of a Moonie group called the Women’s Federation for World Peace and high-ranking members of other Moon organizations.”

(via Houston Chronicle. Picture: American Politics Journal)

(Related: Bad Moon Rising-“King of America”)