The shadow CinC.

Most accounts of Blackwater founder Erik Prince will mention that he's a former Navy SEAL, as though the three years he spent as a junior officer in the 90s was somehow preparation for his current role as commander-in-chief of his own mercenary army. It's actually one of the least interesting things about him. For instance…

...Prince's father is Edgar Prince, who founded the Family Research Council with Gary Bauer. Erik Prince's sister is Betty DeVos, who is married to Dick DeVos, the son of Amway co-founder and Mormon bigwig Richard DeVos. The General Counsel for Erik Prince's Blackwater parent company, the Prince Group, is Joseph Schmitz, the Pentagon's former Inspector General. Schmitz's brother, John Schmitz, Jr. deputy counsel to George H. W. Bush and who is married to the sister of Columba Bush, Jeb Bush's wife. The father of John and Joseph was extreme right-wing Republican Congressman John Schmitz, Sr. Their sister is Mary Kay Letourneau, a former Washington State schoolteacher jailed for having sex with a thirteen year old American Samoan student who she later married.

Hey, a connection to the upper left! Who knew?