While we have your attention, Mr President... (great letter to the Guardian from Frederick Forsyth)

Guardian uk ^ | 11-20-03 | Frederick Forsyth

[doug from upland]

Link to letters: CLICK FOR LETTERS.
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Today's GUARDIAN in England has letters to the editor. Some will make you want to scream. Some will make you want to throw a brick through a window. Some will make you want to slap a useful idiot upside the head. This one, however, will make you feel good.

Dear Mr President,

Today you arrive in my country for the first state visit by an American president for many decades, and I bid you welcome.

You will find yourself assailed on every hand by some pretty pretentious characters collectively known as the British left. They traditionally believe they have a monopoly on morality and that your recent actions preclude you from the club. You opposed and destroyed the world's most blood-encrusted dictator. This is quite unforgivable.

I beg you to take no notice. The British left intermittently erupts like a pustule upon the buttock of a rather good country. Seventy years ago it opposed mobilisation against Adolf Hitler and worshipped the other genocide, Josef Stalin.

It has marched for Mao, Ho Chi Minh, Khrushchev, Brezhnev and Andropov. It has slobbered over Ceausescu and Mugabe. It has demonstrated against everything and everyone American for a century. Broadly speaking, it hates your country first, mine second.

Eleven years ago something dreadful happened. Maggie was ousted, Ronald retired, the Berlin wall fell and Gorby abolished communism. All the left's idols fell and its demons retired. For a decade there was nothing really to hate. But thank the Lord for his limitless mercy. Now they can applaud Saddam, Bin Laden, Kim Jong-Il... and hate a God-fearing Texan. So hallelujah and have a good time.

Frederick Forsyth
Novelist

[Coop]

That really is a fine letter, one that made me smile. Thanks for posting.

[6323cd]

Mr. Forsyth is now on my must-read list. Thank you, sir.

[Indie]

Just a few of Mr. Forsyth's "minor" works..LOL:

--The Day of the Jackal
--The Odessa File
--The Dogs of War

[Don'tMessWithTexas]

The British left intermittently erupts like a pustule upon the buttock of a rather good country.

The American left intermittently erupts like a pustue on the buttock of a rather good country.

Priceless.

The letter deserves a hallowed place somewhere.

[EscapedDutch]

I highly recommend The Fist of God by Mr. Forsyth. Very much an on-topic book indeed. His attention to detail and accuracy makes him my favorite writer.

[workerbee]

Good read bump

[SAJ]

''The Fourth Protocol'' and ''The Devil's Alternative'' are his best, IMNNHO. Whacking good stories. Also, ''The Negotiator'' was enormously entertaining, if rather far-fetched.

[workerbee]

I imagine the left will add book burning to their protests now...?

[Poohbah]

Recommended reading: his short story collection, "No Comebacks."

The one story from that collection that really sticks with me is "Money with Menaces."

[Koblenz]

Fist of God is one of the best novels ever written. His latest, Avenger, was also good. Better than the collection of short stories that he released a few years ago. Day of the Jackal and Devil's Alternative were great. Odessa and Dogs of War were good, but not his best. Still, he's one of the best novelists ever.

[Spok]

So has this guy been knighted, or is that reserved exclusively for rock stars??

[Lorianne]

Cute letter. Thanks for posting.

[Poohbah]

I liked Devil's Alternative; it really felt like you were there in a massive crisis.

The Fourth Protocol was very elegantly plotted.

"No Comebacks" has a GREAT short piece titled "Money with Menaces." That story is very rare: a short story with an unstated moral to it.

[Chummy]

Huzzah for Mr. Forsyth, and excepting the buttocks eruption of which he writes, huzzah for the UK!

[doug from upland]

Dear President Bush,

I'm sure you'll be having a nice little tea party with your fellow war criminal, Tony Blair. Please wash the cucumber sandwiches down with a glass of blood, with my compliments.

Harold Pinter
Playwright

[PeoplesRepublicOfWashington]

Frederick Forsyth is not just a novelist. In fact, he's not a good novelist. Frederick Forsyth is and has always been a great novelist.

[6323cd]

Oh my gosh; I read "The Day of the Jackal" when I was 16, and didn't make the connection that he wrote it! My bad!

[Taliesan]

Dear Mr. Pinter:
You sadly have me confused with those well-known blood drinkers, the Baathist fedayeen, who are of course mostly now dead. With my compliments.

George Bush.

[livius]

Wonderful! Thanks for posting.

I bet somebody's going to see a surge in the sale of his books (at least a tiny, Freeper-driven one).