Trade In Grandma and Other Clunkers (Save Obama’s Healthcare)
8:47 AM PDT, August 6, 2009
By Jack Engelhard Hello, I’m from the government and I’m here to help. Our “cash for clunkers” has proven to be so successful that we’ve decided to extend the program for cars – and for people. Of course there is no place to trade in your elderly, people, in other words, that have too much mileage on them. You cannot simply dump and deposit seniors in some lot, get cash for them, and then go home. So as part of our new and improved healthcare bill, we’ve inaugurated a set-up where people over the age of 65 will be – speaking frankly – at the mercy of the government. Since we know best, we the government will decide who shall live and who shall die. If, for example, a person begins to stutter, or if, for example, a man or a woman has already served his or her purpose in life, well, it’s time to go. Some people simply aren’t worth the bother. Americans (old or even young) who walk too slow or suddenly need help tying their shoelaces are unnecessary and disposable. The fine print in our Bill takes care of such useless individuals. We will, in a word, refuse to provide the proper remedies to whatever ails these people. That’s in the program even in bold print. We have heard rumors that some people are against this new and improved system. These people are obviously malcontents. We have no room for such people. In this America, there is no place for differences of opinion. We must all think alike! We urge you to tune in and learn from the experts, people like Al Gore and Bill Maher and Bill Moyers. They have all the answers. Pay no attention to real doctors, like Dr. Zane F. Pollard who wrote an article online for the American Thinker. This is what he said in connection to the Obama/Congressional Healthcare Bill, “For those of you who are over 65, this Bill in its present form might be lethal for you. People in England over 59 cannot receive stents for their coronary arteries. The [American] government wants to mimic the British Plan.” This doctor (along with many other doctors) disagrees with our Plan and therefore he must be crazy and therefore he must be reported. We hope that you paid attention to what our Linda Douglass had to say about malcontents. She said, “If you get an email or see something on the Web about healthcare insurance reform that seems fishy, send it to flag/whitehouse.” Linda Douglass used to be a member of the press (ABC) and now she is a member of the government, which is actually the same thing. The government and the press are all in this together. We are a team. This helps us all – all Americans -- to think alike. Notice that when our beloved leader needs to make another speech the mainstream networks quickly hop-to. We are one nation under Obama. We are happy to inform you that this administration is determined to stamp out any form of interference and discord. Can we do this? Yes we can! The doctor who spoke up against us, please be sure to heed Ms. Douglass and report him immediately. He and millions like him are a threat to the Collective. They are counter-revolutionaries. Please remember that we voted for Barack Obama to revolutionize America. We voted for this. We voted for change. Change is what we got. Be happy about this. Do not complain. In this America there is no place for dissent and there is no tolerance for individualism. Never mind Emerson and Thoreau. We do not need and we do not want free speech, not in this makeover. People who complain about this program or any other program will have to answer to Linda Douglass, and that’s just for starters. We do not want to talk about what comes next. We will not mention other plans in the works, like sending malcontents to re-education camps and re-conditioning centers. These Americans must be re-programmed and re-tooled. (This is only for people who disagree with us.) Obviously, they must be sick. You, the American voter, have given us a fail-safe form of government. (Thank you, by the way, for letting us run the whole show with no possibility of checks and balances. We are liberals and this is our country! We barely allow others to visit so please shut up.) We are one Party and we can do whatever we want and if we want to pass this healthcare bill, we will do so even above the complaints of the contrarians. We know exactly what to do with clunkers. About the author: Jack Engelhard wrote the international bestselling novel “Indecent Proposal” that was translated into more than 22 languages and turned into a Paramount motion picture starring Robert Redford and Demi Moore. His latest thriller, on media deceit against America and Israel, is available in paperback from Amazon http://www.amazon.com/Bathsheba-Deadline-Original- Novel/dp/0595470793/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1249567 759&sr=8-1 He can be reached at his website www.jackengelhard.com Report Your Neighbors If They Dissent on Obama’s HealthCare Package
6:30 PM PDT, August 5, 2009
By Jack Engelhard The White House is asking us to inform on people who disrespect the current bill on health care, a bill which nobody has read in full – but never mind. According to reports in the news media, Americans are to be on alert for anything that sounds “fishy” in connection to this proposed legislation. In other words, if you, a walking-talking citizen, voice any sort of objection, you are to be reported. As the official word has it, if you, an upstanding liberal loyalist find any email message that is deemed as “disinformation,” you are to notify the White House immediately. Some might refer to this sort of tattling as “White Terror” – a system once employed by the KGB to have neighbor spy against neighbor, in which case nobody can be trusted, hence the term “White Terror.” This system is still in operation in Hugo Chavez’s Venezuela and has proved to be so successful that 100 radio stations have already been silenced and shut down. George Orwell spoke about this in “1984” even though this is “2009.” Some may refer to this as a chilling infringement on free speech but so what, the government knows what’s good for us, so please shut up. Who needs free speech anyway? If you complain about this or any other government legislation, or proposed legislation, then obviously you must be crazy or be some part of an organized conspiracy. Only the government is legitimate and only the government has all the answers. The news media will tell you all you need to know, from the government’s point of you. Remember the new slogan – In Obama We Trust. So as for you, a citizen – you are permitted to have no point of view (except maybe in private), so just shut up, please. (Be careful even when you whisper. Someone may be listening.) Town Hall meetings are set up for the single purpose of allowing your lawmakers to state their case WITHOUT INTERRUPTION. Your job is to listen and pay attention respectfully, even reverentially, even if you have no idea about what’s being said – and if you object to what’s being said then obviously you are part of a mob or part of some lunatic fringe. Don’t be silly. That is, don’t be so silly as to expect your lawmakers to sign a bill and ACTUALLY read what they are signing – never mind the small print, even the big print is too much to ask. Rep. John Conyers says it’s ridiculous to expect congressmen to actually read legislation. Here is Conyers in his own words: “I love these Members [of Congress] that get up and say ‘read the bill.’ Well, what good is it reading the bill if it’s a thousand pages and you don’t have two days and two lawyers to find out what it means after you read the bill.” There you go, citizens, – it’s ridiculous to expect our lawmakers to know what laws they are making. In the face of all this, there is absolutely no chance that you may have honest questions, concerns or grievances. You must be a bigot. You must be crazy. Or, you must be an old man or an woman who is afraid that under this proposed health care legislation – well, you will not necessarily be put to death BUT, the government will decide whether you may live or die. Do not let this trouble you. You are in the hands of the government and the news media which means you are in good hands. Who needs old people anyway? How dare you speak up? Democrats control the entire White House and the entire Congress and we, we voted for this, a system without checks and balances, which means that this is the government we got and this is the government we deserve. Some might say that by voting for a single party to control EVERYTHING we have installed a tyranny. Not so. We elected people to speak for us and our job is never to talk back. If anybody does talk back, be a good citizen, be a spy, and report on your neighbor. Make us proud. About the author: Jack Engelhard wrote the international bestselling novel “Indecent Proposal” that was translated into more than 22 languages and turned into a Paramount motion picture starring Robert Redford and Demi Moore. His latest thriller, on media deceit against America and Israel, is available in paperback from Amazon. http://www.amazon.com/Bathsheba-Deadline-Original- Novel/dp/0595470793/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1249519 055&sr=8-1 He can be reached at his website www.jackengelhard.com
Yo, Glenn Beck, Cool It On New Jersey!
10:36 AM PDT, July 27, 2009, updated at 10:47 AM PDT, July 27, 2009
By Jack Engelhard I caught your show on Fox the other day, the one where you removed New Jersey from the map and I guess I was supposed to laugh but I didn’t. This is where I live and it’s as fine a place as any other in the Unites States of America – and maybe even better. Yes, I scan the headlines, too, so I know about all the arrests. I know there’s corruption. Hello? From state to state, where isn’t there corruption? I could pick any state – the rest of the 49 – and name names but I won’t so as not to insult the good people who live there and who have nothing to do with pay-to-play. Where to begin? Pennsylvania, which just got through sentencing that man Fumo? New York? Does the name Eliot Spitzer ring a bell? North Dakota? How about Rob Blagojevich? Let’s not even talk about Louisiana and Illinois. Sorry to be mentioning some names but I just couldn’t help myself – though, if pressed, I could mention even more. While you’re deleting New Jersey from the map, you may as well delete Enrico Caruso, the world’s greatest opera tenor, who recorded most of his music in Camden, yes, Camden, New Jersey, and be sure to erase Albert Einstein, the world’s greatest scientist, who taught at Princeton, NEW JERSEY! Did I mention that New Jersey was the first state to sign the Bill of Rights? No big deal, you say, as you sit there laughing about our turnpike. Yes, we have the finest road in the world, policed by the nation’s finest State Troopers, but along with that we’ve got the Jersey Shore, 127 miles of coastline. Where else does this happen? We’ve also got as much farmland as any of the other 49 great states – 10,000 farms, east, west, north and south. We’ve got the fastest horses in New Jersey (Monmouth Park, the Meadowlands) and the most beautiful women. (I’ll take anyone’s bet on this.) Did I mention Walt Whitman? If not, then I also forgot to mention a thousand other men and women who nourished the nation from New Jersey. In no particular order, here’s Jon Stewart, Yogi Berra, Norman Mailer, Denzel Washington, Eva Marie Saint, Jack Nicholson, Sarah Vaughan, Meryl Streep, Philip Roth – lest we forget Bruce Springsteen and FRANK SINATRA, for crying our loud. Speaking of Hoboken (where Sinatra was born), yes I know that just the other day the mayor of that town was taken away in handcuffs for alleged corruption as part of that big FBI sweep. But Hoboken also made news in 1846. That is where and when the first organized baseball game was played. There would be no United States if not for New Jersey. Check your history where you’ll find the Battle of Trenton, George Washington’s greatest triumph against all odds. New Jersey is still known as “the pathway of the Revolution.” More than 100 battles were fought on New Jersey soil. So knock it off, Glenn. We are proud of our state. We are not amused when removed from the map. The “Soprano” James Gandolfini (Ringwood, New Jersey) can’t be happy with what you did. We, here in New Jersey, keep taking our lumps and yet, gee, I wonder why our trains, buses and turnpikes are so packed with people heading in our direction? Over the weekend I couldn’t even find a spot in the sand for all the crowds – from around the nation and world – using up our beach. Did I mention Sinatra? About the author: Jack Engelhard wrote the international bestselling novel “Indecent Proposal” that was translated into more than 22 languages and turned into a Paramount motion picture starring Robert Redford and Demi Moore. Engelhard’s latest published books are “The Bathsheba Deadline” and “The Girls of Cincinnati.” He can be reached at his website www.jackengelhard.com
Who Will Be Our First Trillionaire?
11:06 AM PDT, July 26, 2009
By Jack Engelhard Those who have read the book or seen the movie “Indecent Proposal” know what it’s about – what would you do for a million dollars? At the time that I wrote and published the novel back in the mid-1980s, a million dollars was real money. That’s how we defined RICH, by the millions. Larry King (when I appeared on his radio show) asked me why I chose the figure a million dollars for a night of infidelity and before I could answer he agreed. He said, “That’s right. A million dollars is the magic word.” That was then and this is now, and how times have changed! Suddenly, you are nothing if you are not a billionaire with a b. (I’m not changing a thing. A million dollars is still plenty in my book.) Donald Trump is actually suing a man, a writer, who claims, in a book, that Trump is a mere millionaire. Trump says it’s ruining his image and his business. Imagine that – we’ve arrived at a moment when being called a millionaire is an insult. (The rest of us should be so insulted.) If you’ve been following the men who play with our money – Congress – you’ll recall that a generation ago when they discussed roads, dams and deficits (were there bailouts back then?) the talk was always in terms of millions, and the same was true of banks, which bragged about the millions they had in deposits. Why – there was even a time when a thousand dollars was money. Your grandparents and maybe even your parents called it “a grand.” Today, in all this talk between Congress and President Obama about who’s going to pay for this and that boondoggle they’ve pretty much agreed that “the rich” ought to pay for everything and that rich begins at a million dollars, maybe. They’re not sure and still deciding how to divvy up our blood, sweat and tears. Well, it might help to remember that the man who sells me newspapers and tobacco most likely makes a million dollars a year a nickel at a time – but not personally. It’s the business. He spends almost as much as he takes in and he is not a bad man just because he makes a living and puts his kids through college. He also employs people, gives charity. We used to call this the economy, stupid. There really is no defining wealth unless we agree with the Talmud that the person who is rich is the person who is happy with whatever he’s got. That makes most of us poor. We can never be too rich or too thin – right? Lottery winners don’t go jumping up and down unless they’ve hit a jackpot amounting to hundreds of millions, soon to be billions and finally trillions. That’s the trend. Almost every project now being discussed by our lawmakers suddenly costs trillions of dollars. This happened practically overnight. I never heard the word “trillion” until about three months ago. Suddenly it’s all over the place and we’re waiting for our first trillionaire. My dictionary still has no definition for “trillionaire.” The word doesn’t exist, but it’s coming. It does define trillion as, “The cardinal number represented by 1 followed by 12 zeroes.” We’ve come a long way from Tevye who asked God to make him a rich man. Rich? Half an acre to plant his potatoes was rich for Tevye (and for most of our grandparents). . A decade ago a leading New York magazine surveyed Manhattan bluebloods to find out where rich begins; it begins at $50 million. Peanuts, right? Trump, in suing about that book, is fuming that according to writer Timothy O’Brien, he, Trump, ONLY has $250 million tucked away. That same survey, then, if taken these days, would define wealth as beginning with a billion dollars with a b. (“The cardinal number represented by 1 followed by 9 zeroes.”) Less than that and you’re a bum, also beginning with a b. Bill Gates is worth around $60 billion last time I checked. (Actually, what is the difference between $60 million and $60 billion? I cannot fathom the one from the other.) Some say that Gates is really our first trillionaire and more power to him for all the money he’s giving up for charity. He is so busy being truly generous that I doubt he’ll sue me for calling him a mere billionaire – which is always a good start toward real wealth. About the author: Jack Engelhard’s latest thriller, “The Bathsheba Deadline,” which centers on media deceit against America and Israel with a Biblical twist, is available in paperback at Amazon. http://www.amazon.com/Bathsheba-Deadline-Original- Novel/dp/0595470793/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1248629 852&sr=8-1 Engelhard wrote the international bestselling novel “Indecent Proposal” that was translated into more than 22 languages and turned into a Paramount motion picture starring Robert Redford and Demi Moore. He can be reached at www.jackengelhard.com .
Cronkite’s 15 Minutes of Fame for our Infamies
11:24 AM PDT, July 19, 2009
By Jack Engelhard Walter Cronkite’s TV presence was so powerful that when he made some off-hand remark critical of our war in Vietnam, Lyndon Johnson knew that losing the support of Cronkite was the same as losing the support of the American people. LBJ had met his match; journalism that provokes. Back then (going here strictly from memory) we were still reading newspapers and TV News was nothing more than a daily 15 minute roundup and recap – but such was the authority of these men, Cronkite, Huntley/Brinkley, Edward R. Murrow, Eric Sevareid, that we began to trust broadcasting nearly as much as print. (“Murrow’s Boys” dominated CBS for some time.) Today’s obits on Cronkite show him momentarily forgetting his journalistic stoicism in favor of a touch of emotion at the announcement of John F. Kennedy’s assassination. This may be a proper highlight but we should remember that 15 minutes at a time, TV News grew into the monster that it is today. I say monster because from my years as editor at KYW all-news radio (Philadelphia), I knew that round-the-clock news was a goliath that had to be fed minute by minute and thank goodness for commercials. There must be no dead air. Gradually, then, TV Network News was expanded to half an hour a day and soon that wasn’t enough, for along came Ted Turner and the rest of Cable. For a time CNN ruled but now it’s Fox (which in my view is the only place to find news truly fair and balanced). Some may remember that at the strike of midnight all television went dark. The national anthem came on and we were told good night and good luck. We’ve become a nation of news junkies and I know when it started and (full disclosure) I cover this in two books “The Days of the Bitter End” and “The Bathsheba Deadline.” We became fixated on the news the day JFK was shot. From that moment onward, November 22, 1963, we tuned in and turned on to what some called medium cool. Early on, Marshall McLuhan spoke about our ascent or descent as a “global village.” Before that our culture was Elvis and Marilyn Monroe. We read Hemingway and cheered DiMaggio. We waited for Lucy to make us laugh. All that changed abruptly. We demanded, through television, to be shown LBJ being sworn in on Air Force One as Jackie stood by still shaken and covered in her husband’s blood. We had to be there for a glimpse of Baby John John saluting his father’s coffin (at the urging of his mother) and we insisted on bearing witness to the entire funeral, Charles de Gaulle towering at the head of the procession. How can we forget the sounds of those drums! If we lapsed back into Patti Page and Ozzie and Harriet and Perry Mason, here came Watergate and the Watergate hearings to provide true life drama. (Hollywood couldn’t make this up.) Step by step, practically page by page, we followed the decline and fall of a president as no screenwriter could imagine. If we weren’t hooked on TV News before, we were hooked now. Always – always there was Vietnam, the generals, the coffins, the numbers, the fighting itself. Yes, anyone can argue that it was Vietnam that turned us onto TV. Vietnam was our War and Peace right before our eyes. We needed no Tolstoy. Cronkite was plenty. Fast forward to the arrival of Cable News and here too we have that moment when it all came together. Cable news came of age at the trial of O.J. Simpson. We couldn’t get enough of this and neither could Cable, which gave us the plot, the script, the heroes (what heroes?), the villains and everything else that makes Good Television. Cable is still in search of the Trial of the Century but it’s just not happening, not like O.J. Still, here we are, plugged in as never before, through television and other technological devices, and still, are we better informed? We never knew (until later) where Cronkite stood politically. Never (as I recall) did he go in for manipulation. He gave it straight. In losing Cronkite, we’ve also lost, in too many instances, “the way it is” factually and honestly. About the author: Jack Engelhard wrote the international bestselling novel “Indecent Proposal” that was translated into more than 22 languages and turned into a Paramount motion picture starring Robert Redford and Demi Moore. Engelhard’s latest thriller, “The Bathsheba Deadline,” which centers on media deceit with a dramatic Biblical twist, is available in paperback at Amazon. He can be reached at his website www.jackengelhard.com Ogling The News (Blondes Invade TV)
9:34 PM PDT, July 18, 2009
By Jack Engelhard [News Flash! A few days after I wrote this commentary and was still polishing it, the UK Telegraph, coincidentally, reported that "Blondes Dull Men's Brains." (I'm not making this up.) The article goes on to say, "Researchers concluded that men performed worse after they were shown pictures of fair-haired women." So, it's scientifically proven that blondes are coming to take over the world and turn the rest of us into mutants. Terrifying! We, men, may have to hide in caves to hide from the glare. I've already begun wearing sunglasses.] -- How did the news get to be so blonde? This is not a complaint. In fact, this is a tribute, I think. Back in the old days, when we thought only men can handle the truth, TV news was delivered by Serious White Males, like Walter Cronkite, which is not to say that the blondes who've taken over are not serious. I'm sure they've got the requisite gravitas, but they make the going so much sweeter. Wars, earthquakes, forest fires come and go. The blondes endure. If you're thinking Katie Couric, fine, but I'm not. I'm thinking mostly cable, CNN, MSNBC and Fox - mostly Fox. That's where blondes have more fun. By this I mean nearly everyone, from the anchors to the guests, are blonde! The political commentators, the psychologists, the historians who arrive for sound bites- they're all babes, but babes with brains. If you're thinking Megyn Kelly over at Fox, I agree. The news from around the world, and closer to home, is usually so awful that, yes, I'd rather have leggy (and brainy) Megyn break it to me gently rather than, say, Rather, who exemplifies the disappearance of the White Male Anchor - truly an endangered species. That's a favorable development. Over there at PBS, there's Jim Lehrer, and he scares me. He's so somber. Every day it's Armageddon all over again.. Public Broadcasting still hasn't figured it out, that we don't want to worry about the bomb in Iran. You'll notice that President Bush spoke about an oncoming World War Three (yikes!) and, coming as it did with a smile from E.D. Hill on Fox, nobody jumped off a cliff. That used to be called "a woman's touch" and with all that's going on out there in this awful world we can use all the nurturing we can get. If there's a hurricane coming my way, I prefer that it come from Fox's Janice Dean. ABC's Charlie Gibson is all right, but I'm happier fighting our War On Terror with Laurie Dhue. Even the stiff upper lip BBC has a blonde, Katty Kay. Some observers tell us that the BBC is anti American, anti Israel and even anti-Semitic. That may be so, but if I have to take that medicine, I'll take it like that, with the honey, or rather, from the honey. (Am I being sexist here?) The same BBC's Barbara Plett is openly hateful toward Israel (she wept at the loss of Arafat) so that's a different story. Now it becomes a slur. She is not blonde. The Invasion Of The Blonde Anchors possibly began with Lesley Stahl and Diane Sawyer. They were America's first blondes, I think, anchorwise. They proved that blonde need not be a synonym for bimbo and that, in fact, it would be unwise for male chauvinists, like myself, to challenge these babes intellectually. We'd lose. (Megyn Kelly has a law degree and the others have similar credentials.) Okay, Couric. Word has it that she's not making it on CBS because she's a woman and women are never taken seriously unless they're our wives, daughters, mothers, supervisors, editors, doctors, lawyers, judges and governors. That's baloney. The women are doing just fine over at Fox. Roger Ailes, who heads Fox's news operation, knows exactly what he's doing. He knew it from the moment he packed the house with blondes and said to America - news can be sexy. In a world so bizarre, so chaotic, so bloodthirsty, we need it nursed to us and spooned with sweets. We have it from Thomas Hobbes that life is "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short." That's journalism in a nutshell. (That's everything, really.) So who's complaining if all that is delivered to us with sugar and spice. About the author: Jack Engelhard wrote the international bestselling novel "Indecent Proposal" that was translated into more than 22 languages and turned into a Paramount motion picture starring Robert Redford and Demi Moore. Engelhard's latest thriller, "The Bathsheba Deadline," which centers on news media deceit with a Biblical twist, has been termed "a towering literary achievement" by reviewer Letha Hadady and "a courageous, rousing thriller" by author Robert Spencer. "The Bathsheba Deadline" is available in paperback at Amazon http://www.amazon.com/Bathsheba-Deadline-Original- Novel/dp/0595470793/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid =1247971597&sr=8-1
Sotomayor, Fox News and GOP Malaise
9:29 AM PDT, July 17, 2009
By Jack Engelhard Those of who tuned in for a slugfest were disappointed and went back to cutting the lawn. This was no Ali versus Frazier. There were no thrills. Even Fox News abruptly turned off, literally, and returned to regular programming so that Shepard Smith could get himself excited about the Murder of the Day. Only one person gave it some spice, on Fox, and it wasn’t a senator; it was anchorwoman Megyn Kelly. I’m nuts about this lady. Yes, I know the howls at the mention of Fox News, but come on, Roger Ailes knows how to pick the right people (except for Geraldo) and how to keep stories moving. Obviously, ratings were taking a dive. CNN took the hint from Fox and began easing off those hearings as well. News – especially on television – needs a plot, needs a narrative, needs good guys and bad guys, needs to entertain, needs drama and this simply wasn’t good television, never mind good theater. There’s nothing to say about Democrat questioning since those guys are already sold on Sonia Sotomayor. (Amazingly, Al Franken was best of the rest.) But just for the fun of it, we wanted some action from the Republicans. When a hockey game gets dull, there is always someone from the stands who yells – “Hit somebody!” Well, nobody got hit in this panel’s deliberations on whether Sotomayor qualifies for the Supreme Court. The GOP went limp. One reason: the fix is in. They’re without numbers, these Republicans, and they’re without clout. So, except perhaps for Jeff Sessions, they gave up. The surrender began when they picked a sure loser to take on Barack Obama and so it continues. Here in microcosm, what we saw was a Republican Party really down in the dumps. This country is operating under a one Party system. I don’t think that’s smart. This wouldn’t work even if it were all Republicans. I already said all this in a piece I wrote titled “Kremlin America,” which is about the dangers facing America when we lose the charms of checks and balances. Without that we are Russia. Given the defeatism, despair and malaise that we saw from the GOP at these hearings, we’re in for another eight to 80 years of single Party Democrat dominance. Anyway, I don’t think Sotomayor meant what she said about “a wise Latina woman” being more capable than white men. What she meant, I think, was that the high court ought to be a portrait of America. We’re not all men in this country, certainly not all white men, therefore we need different points of views while maintaining the spirit and the letter of the law as established by our Constitution. I’m on her side on this. Does she really have the cajones for the Supreme Court? Well, she certainly proved herself capable under some (not much) -- but some fire. What she did was, well, she gave such longwinded and convoluted and legalistic responses to each question that she withered and wore out the competition – and us. She answered her enemies and even her friends into submission. As for me, I did not find her sharp or brilliant and maybe that’s good. Maybe, to be a good judge, you need to be slow and deliberative. Maybe she is brilliant. She was on her best behavior as is any person applying for a job. The real person comes later. Yes, I said the fix is in but I didn’t mean it the way it sounded. Like the double jeopardy business, once a person has been acquitted, it’s over! In this case, once Sotomayor has been approved, she can thumb her nose at Congress. She can say, “So long, suckers.” She can say, “Oh by the way, I didn’t mean anything I said at those stupid hearings. I’m a Supreme Court Justice and you’re not.” She can add – “I just proved, didn’t I, that a Latino woman is wiser than a roomful of white men.” Jack Engelhard’s latest thriller, “The Bathsheba Deadline,” centers on media deceit against America and Israel and is available in paperback at Amazon. Engelhard wrote the international bestselling novel “Indecent Proposal” that was translated into more than 22 languages and turned into a Paramount motion picture starring Robert Redford and Demi Moore. He can be reached, and his Works can be viewed, at www.jackengelhard.com Inventing J. D. Salinger
9:49 AM PDT, July 12, 2009
By Jack Engelhard The upstairs literary crowd, Eustace Tilley types, are already sharpening their pencils for Dan Brown’s next book, “The Lost Symbol,” even though it won’t be birthed until September. I’m not here to defend Dan Brown except to say that he delivered as promised. His big book, “The Da Vinci Code” was exactly about that, the Da Vinci code. Dan Brown is not adored by the literati and the sniping has already begun as meanwhile Haruki Murakami, one of their favorites, keeps getting embraced. Murakami’s latest gem is titled “Kafka on the Shore” and I happen to be a huge fan of Kafka and nearly went ahead to buy the book until, doing the usual online searches, I found that this book about Kafka is not about Kafka. It’s about a character Murakami has named Kafka with no connection to the great writer Franz Kafka. Cute trick and I’m all for clever marketing but someone should point out that warning labels ought to be attached to certain books. I almost fell for this cleverness. I should learn from it at the very least and perhaps my next book ought to be titled “Hemingway on the Beach” except that it won’t be anything about Hemingway or a beach. In practically all the reviews about this book named Kafka but which is not about Kafka, there is only praise from penthouse reviewers and no mention that perhaps there is something non-kosher about this. Yet this is how it goes once the literary mavens have established a particular writer as “literary” as opposed to “commercial,” though I have never known the difference. Can’t a writer be both? Is Hemingway literary or commercial? We can learn marketing tricks from Amy Holden Jones as well. This screenwriter wrote a movie titled “Beethoven” and those of us who tuned in for a film about the great composer Ludwig van Beethoven were stricken with disappointment. Dog lovers were happy because it was about a dog named Beethoven. The rest of us wanted our money back (though I also like dogs, really). More recently, a writer of unknown pedigree tried to pull a fast one by updating J. D. Salinger’s “The Catcher in the Rye.” Salinger, as we all know by now, stopped this from happening. I say kudos to Salinger for halting at least one phony from getting away with deception. Salinger is all about the sanctity of the novel and as for me, I admire this about him. He insists that it’s only the written word that counts, not the writer, and that’s why he went into hiding. Is Salinger literary or commercial? I’m saying that he’s simply a damn good writer who writes strictly for himself because only his own characters can understand him. He sought no acclaim. The same goes for John W. Cassell, a brilliant writer who ought to be read by millions but is happy enough to have created his own private universe. In “The Bathsheba Deadline” a newsroom novel otherwise about international intrigue and news media deception, I devote several chapters to Salinger to find, through him, what is real and what is fake. In writing about him (through the eyes of fiction) I found myself reconstructing him until I created an image of a man who left the world because so much of it is run by tricks, gimmicks and deceit. Salinger took the cue from God Himself who looked around, saw enough, and left us to our own devices. (Salinger is mystical. That’s for sure and that’s why the novel’s Lyla Crawford is gung-ho after him, body and soul, for the scoop of the century.) Further into the writing about Salinger in “Bathsheba” – and letting my imagination fly --I began to understand why so many of us are in pursuit of this reclusive novelist and though the epiphany is incomplete, this much I take for truth: We send rockets to scale the moon and the planets and yet the most undiscovered planet is ourselves. We don’t even know what truth is when we can’t trust a book by its cover. Jack Engelhard wrote the international bestselling novel “Indecent Proposal” that was translated into more than 22 languages and turned into a Paramount motion picture starring Robert Redford and Demi Moore. His latest published works are “The Bathsheba Deadline” and “The Girls of Cincinnati.” He can be reached, and his Works can be viewed, at www.jackengelhard.com Won’t Have Palin To Kick Around Anymore
4:58 PM PDT, July 3, 2009
By Jack Engelhard Sarah Palin resigned as governor of Alaska pretty much taking the cue from Richard Nixon that we won’t have her to kick around anymore. So she’s out, though we don’t know where she’s going. My guess? This moment starts her run for the presidency – and this is the one and only candidate that has a real chance of upsetting the incumbent. If so many people hate her, it must be because they fear her. What has she done wrong – really, what has this woman done wrong except run for the number two spot as a Republican, if you’ll pardon the expression. Other than that, how many commandments did she trespass? Did she rob, steal, kill? You’d think she’d done all that from all the nasty coverage that has dogged her from the moment her name was announced. Her farewell speech was a mixed bag of political oratory together with restrained anger at all those who’ve mocked her and she sure did attract the worst of what this country has to offer. Think Letterman. Think Vanity Fair. Think of McCain insiders who blamed her for his defeat, never mind that Republicans picked a heroic soldier but the lamest of all candidates. McCain never had a shot, with or without Palin. He had no ideas. He was dull. He ran against his own Party. No shot at all. Palin livened it up. She connected with ordinary Americans and for that reason alone she was disdained. Politicians, comedians, commentators, all ganged up on her and wouldn’t let up even when she left the spotlight. During the Letterman fiasco, readers at the New York Times blamed HER for imposing herself on the public when she did no such thing. It was Letterman who brought her out of hiding. These past six months must have been a nightmare for her and they’ve been and continue to be a nightmare for anyone who trusted America as the land that gives everyone a fair shot – who trusted America as a land of good folks and gentle people. That may still be the case generally but from the lofty penthouses of this land we saw the Ugly American up close and personal, and yes, it was Letterman who condensed it all, summed it all up, with that one crack. The backbiting against this woman was relentless and brutal and did not and does not reveal us at our best. No, we should be better than this. Rapists and murderers get off with lighter sentences. Their punishments end at one point or another, but Palin kept on being punished out of sheer meanness and hatefulness – such as I did not even know existed in this truly good land and within the reservoir of our culture. There is still no end in sight. Recently the National Society of Newspaper Columnists gave her a razzy award as the most ridiculed American newsmaker – which only added to the ridicule and which only proved her point, that they were after her hide. Is there really such an organization of columnists and who are they anyway and what do they want and why are they organized? Isn’t one at a time enough? Is it because she’s a woman? That’s for the sociologists but my guess is that yes, but only partly. Is it because she’s a Republican awash in a world of Democrats? That’s for someone from the National Society of Newspaper Columnists to explain, but here’s my try. I think it’s because she dared to challenge Barack Obama and this is the age of Barack Obama. He’s been sainted and no one shall trifle with a saint. I wish I could say that the ugly pursuit and backstabbing of Sarah Palin came from the cruel streak of left-wingers except that right-wingers also have their cruelties. But this was special. This was ugly. This was brutal. This was cruel – and do not think it’s over. For sure, Letterman’s writers have already gathered for the next round of jokes and jabs and we’ll be hearing more from Bill Maher and all the rest of them who live to scoff and to trash. This is no longer about Sarah Palin and it is no longer about politics. It is about us, how we respond to those who differ from us. If we can’t be civil, if we can’t be respectful, if trashing is all we’ve got, if we can only resort to hatefulness, then something is wrong deep within ourselves. Sarah Palin is the symptom. We are the disease. Jack Engelhard’s latest thriller, “The Bathsheba Deadline,” which centers on media deceit against America and Israel, is available in paperback at Amazon. Engelhard wrote the international bestselling novel “Indecent Proposal” that was translated into more than 22 languages and turned into a Paramount motion picture starring Robert Redford and Demi Moore. Engelhard can be reached, and his Works can be viewed, at www.jackengelhard.com Helen Thomas, of All People, on Media Love-Ins
9:23 AM PDT, July 3, 2009
By Jack Engelhard I’ve never been a fan of Helen Thomas (her rants against Israel, for starters) but this time she’s got me on her side. Good for her! While the rest of her colleagues in the press keep fawning over for the Administration, Thomas literally stood up against all the media manipulation going on when, in a heated exchange with press secretary Robert Gibbs, she said that she’d never seen anything like this – this sort of “management” of the news. Thomas, who’s been a White House correspondent since the days of JFK, came straight out with it in follow-up interviews, saying, “What the hell do they think we are, puppets?” Well, yes, judging from all the giggling that usually occurs at what are supposed to be press briefings but which sound more like press Love-Ins. “It’s blatant,” said Thomas, speaking also about those town-hall set-ups that appear to be so rigged. Speaking of blatant, as well as corruption, here comes the Washington Post. Yes, the Washington Post that we used to admire since the days of Woodward and Bernstein. Well forget that. The word is out that elements within that newspaper were selling access to White House power brokers at a price ranging from $25,000 to $250,000. Buy a cabinet member, a congressman? This news is still breaking but it appears that lobbyists were invited to attend a “salon” at those prices to mix and mingle with the Administration’s high and mighty. On top of that, these well-heeled lobbyists were being enticed to schmooze with the Post’s journalists at the home of publisher Katherine Weymouth. Where have you gone, Katharine Graham and Ben Bradlee? The Post – after all this was revealed by Mike Allen, once a reporter for the same newspaper – has since ditched that party, but we still don’t know if it was stopped only because of the embarrassment. Was the publisher herself in on this? Did editors and reporters know what was going on, and did they approve? Would the party still have been a go if word hadn’t leaked out about this latest romance among the press, the Administration and the lobbyists? Lobbyists – wasn’t that a dirty word when Barack Obama was still a candidate? Some may recall the good old days when the press worked for the facts, the truth, and yes, for the people, and not for the government. What happened? My guess is that it did indeed all start with Woodward and Bernstein, whose dogged and courageous reporting brought down a president. Following that, a generation that would otherwise have chosen social services entered journalism “change the world.” How exciting and how romantic! So we have dreamers instead of reporters. We have lobbyists pretending to be journalists. They lobby for the White House. That’s what fills our newsrooms today. The Washington Post is not alone in selling its brand for a price, even the price of non-partisanship. (See “The Bathsheba Deadline” for HALF THE NEWS THAT’S FIT TO PRINT.) The list of newspapers that have forgotten their duty as a free and adversarial Fourth Estate – the list is long. There no time or space to mention all the media corruption going on as we watch ourselves being manipulated eyes wide open. But Helen Thomas has been there, done that, and has had enough, and for once, she merits our attention, for without a free press we risk being a free people no more. Jack Engelhard’s latest thriller, “The Bathsheba Deadline,” which centers on media deceit against America and Israel, is available in paperback at Amazon. He can be reached, and his Works can be viewed, at www.jackengelhard.com
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Bio
Don't know where to begin. Okay, I am a writer, novelist first, journalist second -- I like the instant feedback journalism gives. My latest novel is running as a serial on Amazon.com: The Bathsheba Deadline. I guess my main claim to fame (so far?)is Indecent Proposal, this novel of mine that was turned into a much-talked about film starring Robert Redford and Demi Moore. The movie retained the plot but left out the heart and guts of the novel, which thankfully was translated into more than 22 languages -- the novel, that is. Two more of my books are being prepared for the movies: Escape From Mount Moriah, and this one is about what it's like being a refugee; also, The Days of the Bitter End. This one's about Greenwich Village in the 1960s and what it was like the day JFK was assassinated, especially how it affected the man who made his living impersonating JFK. As for the journalism, I guess you'd say I write about politics and culture, though more and more it appears that politics IS our culture. I was born in Toulouse, France, escaped (with family) as a baby, was raised in Montreal, later Cincinnati, finally moved to NY/NJ. I wrote a humor column for The Philadelphia Inquirer for quite a few years, was published in The New York Times etc. etc., and the first book I wrote was on thoroughbred racing, THe Horsemen. After that I turned to fiction, and, fellow readers, do not believe the rumor that fiction is dead. Everything is fiction. (Or, fiction says it best)
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