For a little longer!!!!
Posted on 08/12/2003 10:47:37 PM PDT by Bobby777
Aug. 12 — Tom Clancy’s fans believe his political plots are visionary. Long before the threat of a dirty bomb taunted the public imagination, the best-selling author had written “The Sum of All Fears,” about Palestinian radicals who detonate a nuclear explosive at the Super Bowl. Even more eerily prescient was his 1994 novel “Debt of Honor,” in which a suicidal pilot crashes a jumbo jet into the Capitol.
CLANCY’S NEW NOVEL—released this week—seems just as tuned in to the current zeitgeist. “The Teeth of the Tiger” is premised upon an argument for pre-emptive action by a super-secret spy group—set up with the president’s blessing—outside the federal budget and away from prying Congressional eyes. As much a defense of the recent American war on Iraq as a precept for fighting terror, “Teeth” pits Clancy’s new generation spooks against a chilling alliance: a Colombian drug runner motivated by money teamed with an Islamic extremist inflamed by faith.
Clancy, however, remains adamant that he is just trying to tell a story—not making any political points. He spoke with NEWSWEEK’s Brian Braiker about how the United States might better fight terrorism, his experiences working with Hollywood and what he, a famously cantankerous novelist, really thinks of the media. Excerpts:
(Excerpt) Read more at msnbc.com ...
Not difficult to imagine at all. Had FBI director J.Edgar Hoover been a syncophant who had placed the services of his personal *leper colony* of ruthlessly effective agents who extra-judicially took care of those matters he deemed a threat to the survival of the FBI or the nation [same thing, in his view] at the bidding of Attoirney General's *Get Hoffa* project, for example, we might have seen the end of the American experiment in constitutional government much sooner than we have.
As it is, the death of it began in Dallas on November 22 1963 and has continued since then, until eventually we'll be so diluted that we'll either be overtly defeated or just overrun by immigrant occupiers. And that'll be the end of it, one way or another.
Though Hoover was certainly a part of the problem, he bought us some time, at least. I suspect he may be thought of as one of America's greatest heroes one of these days, despite his many personal flaws and quirks. But of course that'll only be if there's still a USA in 75 years hence or so.
-archy-/-
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The son in "The Teeth of the Tiger" (Putnam's Sons, $27.95) is Jack Patrick Ryan Jr., whose father is the longtime Clancy hero who rose through the CIA ranks and became U.S. President. He is now retired, counting his money and writing his memoirs. Except for a constant litany of flattering references, he never appears here, making him Clancy's first casualty. The second is any pretension about America's values and ideals. The good guys - to abuse a perfectly good cliche - are as racist, sexist, materialistic and homicidal as the bad guys. This time around, it's Jack Patrick Ryan Jr., 23, recent Georgetown grad, who picks up the baton. He's sharp as a tack, and most discreet - Dad apparently doesn't know the kid has talked himself into an analyst's job with "The Campus," a secret agency set up to kill America's enemies. The absurdities keep coming. The first two killers recruited are twins, one an FBI agent, the other a Marine officer, who also are - hang on - Jack Junior's cousins. The plot is something about terrorists, mostly Saudi, cooking up a plot to spread panic with terrorist acts that begin with a simultaneous attack on shopping malls. The cousins are buying sneakers in Charlottesville, Va., when the shooting starts, and kill all four terrorists there. Clancy took a critical hammering in his last couple of high-tech thrillers, which may explain why he has passed his neoconservative homilies, car and gun talk, and contempt for due process, to another generation. In truth, Clancy may have recharged his storytelling batteries - the last big scene here, on the Spanish Steps in Rome, almost surely means a sequel. The only women here are whores, but compared with the men, who are pure cardboard and an inch deep, they show a little personality. There is something very creepy about Clancy's protagonists. All are developmentally arrested, all are obsessed with manliness and machinery, and all are posturing frat boy conversationalists. It's possible that Clancy, who has a lot of tight ties in the military and intelligence communities, is simply reporting the way people there talk and think. Or he may only have tapped into some male fantasies of paranoia, secrecy and avenging violence. Not that it matters. The guys are circling the block even now, ready to lay down their money and start reading. The good news is that at 431 pages, a novella by recent Clancy standards, it will not take forever to finish. |
I totally agree! "Take the money and roll over" seems to be his code.
And as far as his "skills as a writer" I find him very ... popular.
In the same way that Bud makes the most beer.
I will put my novel against any of his any day, and I hope enough people read both to make their own judgements.
LOL! Reading Red Rabbit right now...and I'm actually enjoying it - despite the bad reviews I read from other freepers. Reminds me more of his earlier books with lots of background and delving in the psyche of both sides.
I agree!
And nobody will ever say that my characters are pure cardboard and an inch deep.
Still looking forward to your book!!
For a little longer!!!!
Clancy isn't the only pushing this stuff. The media has been busy propagandizing it with such televsion shows as "24" and the new series called "Threat Matrix" (or something similar). I'm sure there are other examples also.
A lot of folks have complexes or fetishes where they'd like to be able to do whatever they please, without being held responsible. The formation of such "rouge" agencies would attract those folks like flies on poop. This is well-documented throughout history. Just look at all the "secret police" that exists in any totalitarian country.
Just visualize President Hillary and AG Schumer, armed with blank-check "Patriot Act Three" powers, with such units at they disposal to target "right wing extremist gun fanatics" for example.
Exactly. See how the feds have used RICO statutes against anti-abortion protestors. Laws WILL be abused by politicians and police, regardless of the intent of the legislators who enact them.
Fortunately, our Founders were wise enough to realize this fact, so they put strict limits on what the gov't could do. In contrast, most sheeple in both parties want the gov't to have unlimited power to "fight the terrorists". Such a course will lead only to more terrorism and less Freedom. And if they push hard enough, it will lead to the scenario presented in your book.
I think he is basically so infatuated with the American soldier and spy that he thinks basic human nature will not prevail in their cases, and his dime novel heroes will never tarnish their badges with anti-constitutional evildoing even when they are cut loose from all constraints.
If I could get one percent of his fan base to read my novel, it would take off like a praire fire.
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