Ed Brayton is a journalist, commentator and speaker. He is the co-founder and president of 
The Family, the secretive Christian group that has gotten so much attention lately, is not all Republicans. There are a few Democrats involved as well, including Rep. Bart Stupak of Michigan, who lives at the now-infamous C street house. I had the chance to do a press teleconference with the congressman on Thursday morning and asked him some questions about his involvement with the group and wrote about it at the Michigan Messenger.
He denied completely any involvement at all with The Family, saying he didn't know what I was talking about at all and he just rents a room there. On the call, he was clearly caught off guard by the questions and seemed to be rather flustered in trying to answer. He kept repeating "I rent a room there" as he fumbled around for a coherent response.
There is good reason to doubt his claims of ignorance. First of all, Jeff Sharlet, who lived with the Family at their Ivanwald complex in Arlington, Virginia, told me that Stupak was assigned by the group to be a mentor to one of his Ivanwald "brothers" (which is what they called each other there). He also said that Stupak was a regular attendee at the Cedars, another Family owned compound that hosts a weekly prayer breakfast led by Ed Meese.
But even without that, we know that the other legislators who live there are members of the Family. We also know that they have all pledged secrecy, as Rep. Zach Wamp admitted to his local newspaper recently. It seems to strain credulity more than a bit to accept Stupak's flat denials of any involvement or even any knowledge of the group and what it does.
Also on the teleconference call was Deb Price of the Detroit News. She didn't ask anything about this subject but she did rush to publish an article about it after the conference call. In fact, she scooped me on it, getting the article up a couple hours before I did. But only because she didn't bother to do any further research, she just repeated Stupak's denials without taking the time to find out if they are likely to be true or not.
This is a good example of how the new media often does a better job of real journalism than the traditional media (and I say that as someone who has a lot of respect for Deb Price and thinks she's a good journalist).
Politics
Comments
How many rooms at the C Street house are rented? How many of them are to people who claim no knowledge of The Family? If they are running a commercial business (i.e. renting rooms), wouldn't that violate their tax-free status as a church?
What's with the vow of secrecy? That's just strange.
Posted by: Herod the Freemason | July 24, 2009 11:25 AM
A secretive religious cult that actively recruits powerful politicians - no problem there!
I wonder if the Scientologists are jealous?
Posted by: Taz | July 24, 2009 11:31 AM
Or taking notes?
Posted by: AL Jeremy | July 24, 2009 11:44 AM
"A weekly prayer breakfast led by Ed Meese?" Are you fucking kidding me?
Posted by: Raging Bee | July 24, 2009 12:32 PM
With word coinage on the upswing lately, I thought at first that "Stupak" was a reference to Depak Chopra. - well... coulda been!
Posted by: John Swindle | July 24, 2009 12:39 PM
That was my first thought when I heard an audio clip of the denial this morning - "Isn't the first rule of The Family that you don't talk about The Family? Of course that's what he'd say." At that point I wondered if I was getting into tinfoil-hat territory, but with Sharlet confirming that Stupak was actively participating...
Posted by: Cathy W | July 24, 2009 1:42 PM
So Stupak didn't know who his landlord was?
What was written on his rent checks or was that all man-on-man cash like the payments to mistresses is handled?
Posted by: Rob Jase | July 24, 2009 3:05 PM
Disagree about Deb Price, I perceive her as nothing more than a hack. Then again, as a CA resident we only see her knee jerk columns. No surprise that Stupak first response was to lie about his position within the Family. They are the "Christian Mafia" after all, so deny, deny, and deny should be the expected response. If there's any justice, that house on C Street is loaded with asbestos and radon.
Posted by: Onkel Bob | July 24, 2009 3:38 PM
Definition of Lame: grown men acting like grade schoolers with their very own Cool Club and its backyard fort.
Posted by: Martin | July 24, 2009 4:41 PM
I just rented a room there! Sure, I'd occasionally see the other guys doing hookers and blow when I came out of my room to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, but I never really got involved with any of their shenanigans.
Likely story.
Posted by: H.H. | July 25, 2009 12:19 AM
Compound.
Eeeewe, it sounds like Elohim City or Waco or something, only worse.
More money and more clout. So tell me, does Rev Moon rent a room there too? Do the Ivanwald Bros have a hotline to the Washington Times?
Posted by: Seeing Eye Chick | July 25, 2009 12:34 AM
It appears that Rachel Maddow got wind of Ed getting Stupak lying on the record regarding his assocation with The Family. Perhaps through Mr. Jeff Sharlet; the author Ed interviewed on his radio show a few weeks ago. Here's the segment from Maddow's show last night with Sharlet.
Posted by: Michael Heath | July 25, 2009 7:01 AM
I rather liked being represented by Stupak when we lived in the U.P. Disagreed with him about a bunch of stuff, but thought he was both smarter and more principled than the typical Congress critter. For sure he was an improvement over his sleazy predecessor.
Posted by: Nan | July 25, 2009 7:29 AM
I agree with you Nan (he still represents me). While I haven't read Sharlet's book, I wasn't very concerned about Stupak renting from these people and participating in their prayer groups given the Ed/Sharlet radio interview and the Mother Jones article Sharlet recommended in that interview with Ed. However it now appears Ed's caught Stupak lying about the degree of his involvement, so I'm hoping the local media will follow-up.
Posted by: Michael Heath | July 25, 2009 7:52 AM
What's next, "The Megachurchian Candidate"?
Posted by: democommie | July 25, 2009 8:02 AM
Looks like that book, "The Family," could have been titled "The Sharlet Letter."
Bob
Posted by: Bob Carroll | July 25, 2009 7:21 PM
As a constituent of Rep. Stupak, I believe Shiite Christians like the C Street crowd are as big a threat to America and its freedoms as the Moslem terrorists. Stupak has proven this with his amendment to the House health care reform bill. In his conservative lifestyle district of Yooperland, he is trying to ride the political fence. He, like Senator Lieberman, deserves to be expelled from his Democrat Caucus. He has plenty enough to do with his Right-to-Life Caucus.
Posted by: Paul Freshwater | December 8, 2009 2:23 PM