[RightWhale]

here is Jack Ryan putting in 100+ hour weeks with the CIA and his wife somehow manages to raise perfect children while working at John Hopkins as their top eye surgeon

For those of us raised on Robert A. Heinlein such characters are exactly who should populate novels.

As far as his writing skill is concerned, consider the huge volume of coherent sentences he produces [or used to produce] in a year. It's hard to argue with someone who can kill entire rainforests and cause printer's ink to be purchased by the trainload just by pushing a few keys on a typewriter or scribbling a little with a fountain-pen.

[Travis McGee]

Clancy has used platoons of gung ho wannab writer interns to crank out his pap for years, following in the profitable footsteps of Michener.