Reply #22: He's a "Paperback Fighter", according to a long-ago piece. . . [View All]

[DinahMoeHum]

by the late, great Scott Shuger of the Washington Monthly:
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2001/0206.shuger3.html

(snip)
It's not surprising that Clancy is popular bedtime reading at the White House. In the higher reaches of civilian and military command there is a yearning to believe in something that the Clancy image plays right into: You could call it the Ollie North fantasy. Leaders have a powerful need to believe that when they authorize a military or intelligence operation, it will happen just the way they ordered it. This need--and its seductive power--is simple enough to understand. If you are served by experts in command of magic technologies, then all you have to do is make the "go/no go" decision. Your experts with their magic machines will take care of the rest. That's all there is to leadership! No need to be up at 3 a.m., worrying if your subordinates are doing the right thing and doing it correctly. You just give the word to go, and then it's off to work for your people, and off to Camp David for you. Isn't that wonderful?
(snip)

And here's the author's encounter with Tom Clancy:

(snip)
I've talked to Tom Clancy once. His publicist put me in touch with him in connection with a magazine article I was doing. It was a pretty natural fit: we're both from Baltimore, both write about the military, and I was once a naval intelligence officer. The conversation was going along fine until Clancy found out that I'm not as enthusiastic about aircraft carriers as he is. He dismissed my point of view as a "liberal shibboleth" and quickly declared the interview over. Tom Clancy doesn't have room for maximum questioning.
(snip)

much more...

:nuke: