A travel advisory ought to be issued whenever Neil Bush boards a plane for Southeast Asia. What should we do when he's in the company of Sun Myung Moon?

Thanks to John Gorenfeld for the story that Silverado's billion dollar Bush has joined the "Lord of the Second Advent" on his 100-day world tour, ostensibly to promote the usual over-the-Moon agenda of peace, love and understanding.

Last Wednesday Team Moon touched down in Taiwan to launch a "global peace campaign" and promote the formation of "ideal families." Moon declared that "'spirits' have arrived on Earth to watch human beings' every move," and that "those who stray away from the heavenly way will be punished." Next stop was the Philippines - The Manila Bulletin generously described Bush as a "peace leader" - where President Gloria Arroyo "praised Moon for his global peace efforts and God-centered, family-centered economic and social initiatives."

Neil, we know, is following Poppy's lead: Moon led his father across South America in the mid-90s, stuffing a hundred grand in his pocket for his trouble, which naturally was no trouble at all for either man.

Also along for the latest ride is Washington Times President Joo Dong Moon, and that should remind us of the part the Moonie paper played in breaking, and then stifling, the Craig Spence White House call boy scandal that was linked to the office of Vice President Bush on this notorious front page. As I wrote last February, "did the Times initially play this story as big as it did in order to win influence? In other words, Look - we got the goods - what you gonna do about it? The Times said it had the names of Spence's clients, and that they included politicians, as well as military, media and business figures. Blackmail, it's called in impolite circles. This could explain why the scandal was made to go away virtually overnight, the names undisclosed. Because, they did something about it."

Given Neil's publicized appetites, it doesn't take a great leap of imagination, or even a particularly sordid imagination, to wonder what might remain hidden by a friendly publisher with his own intelligence apparatus and Asian power base. That is, assuming the Bush boy gives something in return.

The Moon junket isn't Neil's first unlikely foray into the politics of religion. He works Capitol Hill as a lobbyist for Scientology, and still needing clarity is the story that he co-founded a mysterious Swiss-based ecumenical foundation with the future Pope Benedict XVI in 1999. As I noted back in April Neil Bush is hardly regarded for his attention to religious causes, nor Ratzinger to ecumenism. (Also from the April post: "Curiously, the foundation is listed by Dun & Bradstreet as a 'management trust for purposes other than education, religion, charity or research,' though an official claims the designation must be a mistranslation.")

Superficially it would seem as though brother Neil has picked up the religion brief for the Bush family. (Or perhaps that should be the "Religion: Other" brief, as a part of George still glibly plays the role of prelate to evangelical America.) But perhaps that would be to confuse the things of Moon, Hubbard and the Vatican with the things of spirit. The three kingdoms move vast sums of wealth, are latticed with networks of international crime and intelligence and command the loyalties of hundreds of millions of people, some compelled by various degrees of mind control.

While I appreciate its colour, I don't use the term "Bush Family Evil Empire." The Octopus is the family business, but I think the Bushes should be regarded more as its trusted lieutenants than its first crime family. Moon owns 600,000 hectares in Paraguay's arid Chaco, below which sits the worlds largest aquifer. And as it's not just about oil, it's not just about water, either. It's about drugs and guns, as well. That's the business of the Octopus. As Paraguay's former "drug czar" said, "The fact that they came and bought in Chaco and on both sides of the Brazilian border is very telling. It is an enormously strategic point in both the narcotics and arms trades and indeed the available intelligence clearly shows that the Moon sect is involved in both these enterprises." This should inform our reading of recent headlines such as US military presence in Paraguay irks neighbors.

The Bush Family presents the most recognizable face of the Octopus, having risen, more than once, to the highest purportedly-public office in the United States. But what again is the correlation between ceremony and power?

They have a seat at the table, but it's not their table.