Chief Kyle tells his story in what must be dubbed a “no bull” manner. He has little time for political correctness or even political incorrectness. He’s certainly not a writer. But that is what makes what is written so good and his story so compelling. Chief Kyle ignores irony and trying to push either a political agenda or an emotional one. He simply writes his story. The emotions and everything else come naturally through. You can feel Chief Kyle sitting in a chair allowing us the privilege of hearing his story, his story of bravery. Bravery is too clichéd a word, though. What Chief Kyle experienced is beyond bravery. His pureness in his patriotism, his Christianity, his need for battle, his love for family breathes a freshness into the words on each page. Chief Kyle gives himself to us for 379 pages despite already giving us so much.

“American Sniper” does not follow a regular narrative. There are no larger story arcs: no beginning, middle or end. “American Sniper” is a man’s story, and that man’s life continues, so it doesn’t follow a typical storytelling narrative. Chief Kyle tells us about everything from meeting his wife and BUD/S training to knocking out a rather famous former Navy SEAL who wouldn’t keep his conspiracy theories to himself. He also takes us deep into his deployments to Iraq. He guides us through his major kills as a sniper and the major firefights his platoon found themselves in (believe me, there are plenty).

The book also provides us with occasional thoughts from Mrs. Kyle. She provides her experiences during the Chief’s deployments and the difficulty of raising a family with a Navy SEAL father and husband. In fact, the contrast of the peace of family and the hectic danger of war become contrasting themes in the book. Chief Kyle is open and honest about his back-to-back deployments straining his marriage and how his decision to eventually leave the Navy was a conflicted one, but saved both his marriage and possibly his own life.

But the book never makes these contrasting themes the focal point. This is Chief Kyle’s story. He’s a Navy SEAL, a father, a husband and he has the most confirmed kills of any military sniper. However, what really matters to him are his brothers in arms. Chief Kyle constantly talks of his affection for those who serve, especially his brother SEALs. He says he served America during his deployments, not Iraq. But this, alas, is also not the focal point of the book. “American Sniper” isn’t about Chief Kyle’s viewpoints on the Iraq war or anything else. In fact, he’s too much of a non BS-er to get involved with the foibles of politics, which is a good thing for the reader.

“American Sniper” provides us with a firsthand look at the Iraq war and war and warriors in general. Chief Kyle speaks bluntly and openly. The book takes us deep into enemy territory where we can observe the actions of him and his platoon mates. He never offers apologies and he shouldn’t have to. Everything he does is for the good of the country, and we are all the better for it.

“American Sniper” is a great way to kick off your 2012 reading year. Its blunt style gives it both personality and insight and, most importantly, a great technique to tell the story. Chief Kyle is a real life hero. He’s the guy they make movies about, though he seems to deny this repeatedly. He constantly pushes the adoration towards his fellow SEALs and service men, and his genuine modesty only make him more noble. Pick up “American Sniper” if you want a tough-as-nails account of the war on terror or a tough-as-nails account of a true warrior, because this is both.

—–

You have to see this to believe it. And yes, that’s a Palestinian flag Lupe Fiasco is proudly waving — which goes perfectly with the song lyrics posted below.

Big Journalism editor Dana Loesch, who watched the show, tells me that she found Erykah Badu performing in a “fashionable” burqa especially ironic when BET is the same network airing PSAs about black female empowerment.

As long as they look cool and are all multi-cultural, I guess symbols of female enslavement aren’t necessarily all bad.

“Words I Never Said” (lyrics)

It’s so loud Inside my head
With words that I should have said!
As I drown in my regrets
I can’t take back the words I never said
I can’t take back the words I never said

I really think the war on terror is a bunch of bullshit
Just a poor excuse for you to use up all your bullets
How much money does it take to really make a full clip
9/11 building 7 did they really pull it
Uhh, And a bunch of other cover ups
Your childs future was the first to go with budget cuts
If you think that hurts then, wait here comes the uppercut
The school was garbage in the first place, that’s on the up and up
Keep you at the bottom but tease you with the uppercrust
You get it then they move it so you never keeping up enough
If you turn on TV all you see’s a bunch of “what the fucks”
Dude is dating so and so blabbering bout such and such
And that ain’t Jersey Shore, homie that’s the news
And these the same people that supposed to be telling us the truth
Limbaugh is a racist, Glenn Beck is a racist
Gaza strip was getting bombed, Obama didn’t say shit
That’s why I ain’t vote for him, next one either
I’ma part of the problem, my problem is I’m peaceful
And I believe in the people.

It’s so loud inside my head
With words that I should have said!
As I drown in my regrets
I can’t take back the words I never said
I can’t take back the words I never said

Now you can say it ain’t our fault if we never heard it
But if we know better than we probably deserve it
Jihad is not a holy war, wheres that in the worship?
Murdering is not Islam!
And you are not observant
And you are not a muslim
Israel don’t take my side cause look how far you’ve pushed them
Walk with me into the ghetto, this where all the Kush went
Complain about the liquor store but what you drinking liquor for?
Complain about the gloom but when’d you pick a broom up?
Just listening to Pac ain’t gone make it stop
A rebel in your thoughts, ain’t gon make it halt
If you don’t become an actor you’ll never be a factor
Pills with million side effects
Take em when the pains felt
Wash them down with Diet soda!
Killin off your brain cells
Crooked banks around the World
Would gladly give a loan today
So if you ever miss a payment
They can take your home away!

It’s so loud inside my head
With words that I should have said!
As I drown in my regrets
I can’t take back the words I never said, never said
I can’t take back the words I never said

I think that all the silence is worse than all the violence
Fear is such a weak emotion that’s why I despise it
We scared of almost everything, afraid to even tell the truth
So scared of what you think of me, I’m scared of even telling you
Sometimes I’m like the only person I feel safe to tell it to
I’m locked inside a cell in me, I know that there’s a jail in you
Consider this your bailing out, so take a breath, inhale a few
My screams is finally getting free, my thoughts is finally yelling through

It’s so loud Inside my head
With words that I should have said!
As I drown in my regrets
I can’t take back the words I never said

—–

Why the good Lord gives such horrible people so much talent is a mystery to me.

USA Today:

The team behind 24 has a new take on terrorism in Homeland, premiering Sunday on Showtime (10 ET/PT).

The show revolves around two damaged protagonists: Nicholas Brody (Damian Lewis), a Marine sniper missing in Iraq since 2003 and presumed dead, then discovered as a prisoner of war; and CIA counterterrorism analyst Carrie Mathison (Claire Danes), who had been warned by an informant a POW was “turned” into a traitor and now suspects Brody is tied to an imminent attack. 

He’s welcomed home to suburban Washington as a hero and treated as a “poster boy” for the war, but he’s having problems readjusting to society and his family. She’s bipolar — she calls it a “mood disorder” — and is obsessively tracking Brody after a misstep that derailed her career as a case officer.

Howard Gordon, an executive producer of ['Homeland' and '24'], says that while 24 reflected an urgent, post-9/11 ethos, Homeland has the benefit of historical distance and takes a more skeptical view of the war on terror. “Should we be afraid of the same things we were afraid of 10 years ago? The world is more complex, and our understanding of it is more nuanced. And there’s a gray space of not knowing who the good guys and bad guys are.”

Full story here.

Unfortunately, they chose to fight for the other side.

If our history is written by honest brokers, this generation of Hollywoodists will be remembered as those who openly enabled evil and spent hundreds of millions of dollars making bombs for the enemy — box office bombs. Over a dozen of them, specifically engineered with equal parts lies and hate and propaganda to undermine morale at home and on the battlefield in the hopes that we would lose this war.

Never forget the crime committed in New York, Pennsylvania and at the Pentagon on that terrible day.  And never forget  how Hollywood turned on your country.

There were some exceptions, however, and chief among them was Joel Surnow, the co-creator of “24.” Each week, for eight seasons, he gave this country a hero who openly loved America, did what was necessary to protect her, and who was willing to pay a terrible price for it. ”24″ also delivered the goods. Cathartic, exciting and righteous without being self-righteous, the addictive adventures of Jack Bauer became an oasis in a cesspool of Hollywood product delivering the exact opposite message.

As the face of the program, Surnow paid a price for his apostasy and because he’s a smart man who knows how the world works, my guess is that he knew that someday he would. We all watched as some of the biggest forces in the world of entertainment and politics ganged up to exact their revenge with “The Kennedys.” Don’t believe for a second that wasn’t a form of payback.

For whatever it’s worth, we thank you, Joel Surnow.  You can’t imagine what it meant to millions of us  to have something to count on over those weeks and years — something that told us we weren’t crazy and we weren’t alone.

And thank you to the subversives who used their art and magnificent artistry to take our side through thinly veiled allegory. Thank you Frank Miller and Zack Snyder for “300.” Thank you Christopher Nolan for “The Dark Knight.”

There were others. Men like Gary Sinise who tirelessly support the troops and David Zucker who took the fight directly to that anti-American pig Michael Moore. There is also Robert Davi, Jon Voight, Kelsey Grammer, Michael Moriarty and those like them who have bravely and eloquently spoken out against the talking points issued by their Hollywood Overlords.

For fear of missing one, I won’t attempt to name everyone in Hollywood who did the right thing, who openly supported our military and refused to participate in the resume-enhancing undermining of our country. Within the context of the whole of the entertainment business, however, they make up a heartbreakingly short list. But you know who are and we know who you are and we thank you.

The rest of you can burn in Hell.

“I had to do something different. I needed a change,“ Klavan says.

What Klavan got instead was a phone call imploring him to get back to work.

“Have you ever thought of writing a young adult novel?“ his publisher asked during an out of the blue cell phone conversation. The only other time Klavan had dabbled in the genre was while living in England. He recalled coming home every day from that gig telling his wife, “it was the most fun I ever had [writing].”

“I instantly said, ‘yes,‘” Klavan told his publisher, and the Homelanders series was born.

“The Final Hour,” the fourth and final book in the series following “The Last Thing I Remember,“ “The Long Way Home” and “The Truth of the Matter,“ finds young Charlie West trying to halt an impending terrorist attack. He’ll have to escape from prison, risk his life reclaiming lost memories and find enough people to believe he holds the key to stopping a jihadist assault on a major city.

Writing for a youthful audience required a different approach, but Klavan says that helped him broaden his range as a writer.

“It changed the vocabulary I used, and a lot of my attitudes … it limited the number of tools I had,” he says. “It’s always an exhilarating experience as an artist. You have these limitations and you have to make them work.”

Klavan, who grew up in Great Neck, Long Island, says he wanted to write for as long as he can remember.

“In those days, the novelist was the culture hero. They had names like Hemingway and Faulkner … I don’t think there’s anybody like that now,” says Klavan, who dreamed of making a living as a mystery crime novelist.

Klavan published his first novel, “Face of the Earth,” in 1977 and found work in print and on the radio. His novelist career eventually took off with titles like “True Crime,” “The Animal Hour” and “Don‘t Say a Word.”

The two-time winner of the Mystery Writer’s of America Edgar Award still loves the genre, but his writing career evolved when he had an epiphany not unlike famed playwright David Mamet.

“I grew up in such a left-wing household,” he says, adding his father considered conservatives “one step” away from the Nazis.

“He literally thought that,” he says. “It didn’t occur to me you could be a conservative.”

At the time, his liberal chums had derided President Ronald Reagan as “a greedy fool and a war monger,” but the president’s check list started filling up with major accomplishments.

“Slowly, it dawned on me everything he was doing was working, while [President] Carter was really a disaster,” he says.

“When the Berlin Wall came down, I thought, ’this is what [Reagan] said would happen. The guy couldn’t have been that stupid,’” he says. “It really opened up all kinds of possibilities … not only was this left wing idea wrong, they were all wrong. It took me years to catch up with that.”

Klavan’s novelist career has attracted Hollywood’s attention, resulting in several movies borne from his imagination including “Don’t Say a Word” and “True Crime“ starring Clint Eastwood (“he was too old for the part,” Klavan notes).

“I never meant to [work in Hollywood]. I almost got dragged into it,“ he says. “I don’t know any happy screenwriters. You have so little power.”

Now, Summit Entertainment has gobbled up the rights to the Homelanders series. But he suspects the stories’ radical Islamic elements might not make the final cut. He recalls a recent article in The Hollywood Reporter saying the studio planned to introduce a science fiction element into the narrative.

“My guess is, they’re removing the Islamo-fascist thing,“ he says, something he notes with little emotion. “It’s always good for you when a film gets made of your book. I’m still a novelist first and foremost.”

Besides, Klavan can still shape hearts and minds through his other media outlets, from his perch at PJTV (“Klavan on the Culture”) to his commentary at The City Journal.

It took some time before he was able to share his new conservative beliefs.

“As my political opinions changed, I lost the ability to speak. I wasn’t sure what I thought. It made it difficult to write non fiction. Only as my ideas crystallized could I do that again,” he says. And he doesn’t mind working as hard as he did during his 20s today as a result.

“I love the country, and I love standing up for what I think is right,“ he says.

This is NOT a propaganda piece – Jaker shows just how difficult the job of counterinsurgency is, and how successful and rewarding it can be. The 1st Battalion 5th Marine Regiment’s Regimental Combat Team 3, the 1st Combat Engineer Battalion, Combat Logistics Battalion 8 and the unit’s highly motivated civil affairs teams took over Patrol Base Jaker in the almost deserted Taliban controlled town of Nawa-l-Brakzayi in Helmand Province. The British unit that was relieved had been so under manned that they had to over depend on air support that sometimes killed and wounded local civilians.

Enter Jaker’s commanding officer Colonel William McCollough, a scholar-warrior of the best type who commands through example, intelligence and understanding. McCollough’s officers, NCO’s and enlisted personnel not only push back the Taliban from Nawa but implement a large number of successful civil affairs missions, ranging from rebuilding and resupplying local schools, clearing irrigation ditches and providing wheat seed to replace the poppies that help fund the Taliban. They also reinvigorate the abandoned market place, gradually getting the locals to bringing back almost 80 merchants and do their best to help reform the corrupt local governmental hierarchy and police. This is a film about gaining trust, one uneasy step at a time.

It’s a huge job, but the Marines of Patrol Base Jaker are more than up to it thanks to civil affairs professionals like Gus Biggio, who gave up a successful career on Wall Street to serve his country. The success in Nawa is in a big part due to getting to know and understand the local Afghani people, who grow poppies and let their son’s fight for the Taliban, because they’ll wind up dead if they don’t. Afghani governmental and police corruption is not shied away from. McCollough and his officers listen to the complaints and observe the locals confront Afghani officials right on camera.

One of the film’s biggest strengths is that the viewer gets to know average Afghanis, young and old as real people, in many ways vastly different from us, but still wanting peace, education and self determination. School kids and parents yearn for the reopening of the first school and merchants and farmers are anxious to get back to their trades. Even local tribal leaders are shown now not afraid to stand up and speak their minds in public, gradually coming to trust the Americans, not as conquerors but as allies. The Marines in Nawa are not trying to turn these Afghanis into Americans they’re just trying to give them a chance to live their normal lives.

The successes in Nawa didn’t come without a bloody price tag, during filming four Marines, including a highly regarded 34-year-old NCO and recent first time father lost their lives trying to bring peace to the region. One of the most affecting scenes is the ceremony honoring that sergeant with members of the battalion in formation as his helmet is place a top his M-4 carbine commemorating his sacrifice. David Scantling’s Patrol Base Jaker captures the spirit, intelligence and compassion of the modern American fighting man, whose contributions are not always won at the end of the muzzle of a weapon, but often with a bulldozer and a school book.

Mitty Griffis Mirrer’s Gold Star Children is an inspiring look at how the children of service men and women killed in Iraq and Afghanistan are coping with their losses. And it is told through the eyes and words of many of those children and surviving parents including Ms. Mirrer, who lost her own father in Vietnam when she was only 16 hours old. Mirrer doesn’t appear to have any previous film credits, but this film is not only as professional as any top PBS documentary, but also so emotional that hardly anyone in the audience could back a tear or two, myself included.

The spouses and kids of Gold Star children aren’t blaming the U.S. Government for their losses. They are all incredibly proud of their parents or spouses service and are learning to cope through a wonderful mentoring program called TAPS, the Tragedy Assistance Program for Survivors. At TAPS older children and adults who have lost loved ones go through extensive training to help the younger kids deal with the loss in a positive fashion. In the process the adults learn as much from the kids as the kids do from the adults. The maturity and decency of the youngest surviving family members is incredible to see. Nine-year-olds talk openly about how they are dealing with dad or mom’s death while mothers strive to regain a positive sense of normalcy for their children. Mirrer has captured the children and adults of TAPS on camera in a poignant and compassionate style that was not easy to accomplish.

One dignified Hispanic-American mother tells how as a child she lost her father in Vietnam and now has to deal with the death of her officer husband in Afghanistan. She has two bright and decent teenaged boys who are a true tribute to their dad’s memory and the family works with each other one day at a time in a fitting memory to a loving husband and father.

Gold Star kids are brought to the Vietnam Memorial Wall in Washington to help clean it and are then told the stories behind some of the 50,000 names chiseled there. During the annual Rolling Thunder biker rally of Vietnam Vets these tough looking former soldiers, Marines, sailors and airmen are shown giving kids rides on their bikes and talking with them quietly about their own war time friends and experiences. One nine-year-old girl from Texas trains and then runs a children’s TAPS marathon as a tribute to her late father, learning about, while also teaching others, how to deal with the loss while on her own emotional journey.

The quietly gripping content of this film that director Mirrer so deftly gives to her audience makes any one viewing it feel sadness, pride and wonder, all at the same time, at how everyone from grownups to three-year-olds are dealing with their grief. This is not a film that is easy to explain, it is far more a film that has to be felt. Gold Star Children should be mandatory viewing for all high school students so they can see just how real the phrase “Freedom isn’t free,” truly is.

Excellent work from the Wrap:

The Oscar-winning director has been tweeting about his belief that Bin Laden should have received a trial, and his theory that Pakistan was keeping the Al Qaeda head under house arrest. TheWrap grilled Moore about his controversial views. 

Is Obama lying about how Bin Laden died?

Common sense tells you he was executed. That was the plan all along. Just tell us that and quit treating us like children.

I have a lot of faith in Obama, but we’ve received three different stories in three days. We heard, “There was a firefight.” “He used a woman as a shield.” Now it turns out none of these things were true. He wasn’t armed.

Does it matter if he was executed? Do you think he deserved a trial?

I am a Catholic, and the position of the Catholic Church and the Pope is that we are 100 percent against the death penalty unless it is in self-defense. Look at the Nuremberg Trials. We didn’t just pop a bullet in the heads of the worst scum in history. We thought it was important to put them on trial and expose their evil. In a democracy we believe in a system of justice and we believe in a judicial system that gives people a day in court…and then we hung them.

It doesn’t mean we can’t hang them afterward. ….

Do you think Osama was really buried at sea because of his religious beliefs?

That’s bullsh*t — “He was buried at sea according to Muslim tradition.” I’ve got many Muslim friends where I live in Michigan. When I go to a Muslim funeral in Detroit, we don’t hop in a chopper after the ceremony and drop the body into Lake Erie.

We’re so worried about upsetting the Muslim world. We just shot him in the f**king head, do you think they care how we conduct the funeral?

Well, I’m also a Catholic who believes in the rule of law and regardless of the circumstances, it was completely appropriate and moral to drop bin Laden on sight.  There are no Geneva protections for terrorists. Furthermore, what a trial would’ve done to traumatize the victims of 9/11 is unthinkable.

Moore’s dancing around the funeral question is especially pathetic. Well, of course Moore’s “Muslim friends” aren’t dropped in the Great Lakes. That wasn’t the question. Why is he afraid to answer it?   

Michael Moore doesn’t care about facts or the 9/11 victims. All he cares about is doing what he always does, and that’s trashing America.

The man is an obscenity.

War’s casualties have never felt more cruel.

Tim Hetherington, always a seeker of truth, was killed yesterday while covering the conflict in Misrata, Libya. Chris Hondros, a Pulitzer Prize-nominated photographer was also killed. Two other photographers, Guy Martin and Chris Brown, were injured. There is always an understanding of (and no way to prepare for) the possibility that those who follow their mission into the war zone may not make it back alive. Unfortunately it is a given that comes with the territory. There is even less inclination to prepare for the possibility that someone who is in that war zone not as a soldier, but as a journalist, will be among the fallen.

News of Tim’s death first came via Facebook. (It was an honor to be one of the 1,197 friends that stayed in touch with Tim and his work on Facebook, where he was sometimes known as ‘The Timinator.’) It was here that his friend and fellow photographer in Libya, André Liohn, posted the news that no one ever wants to read. As has become my habit with breaking news, I checked Twitter for the latest update. The last tweet on his Twitter account was posted on Tuesday and read “In besieged Libyan city of Misrata. Indiscriminate shelling by Qaddafi forces. No sign of NATO.”

I’m sure that Tim and I had differing opinions of this ongoing series of wars in our life. I don’t mean this in terms of “pro” or “con.” I mean this in terms of how we based our opinions, whatever they were. How could we not? Our very understandings of the war(s) were vastly differently-informed. He was there and I was not. These wars that filled our headlines were wars that he saw and breathed… But then again, for 93 minutes, sitting in the darkened cinema, I had the opportunity to see and breathe the Korengal Valley as if I were there. Tim would say that his goal was to take an audience to a remote place that they could never get to without his help. And so he did, bravely. He and Sebastian Junger had the vision to step aside from the center of the story and let the camera capture simply what was. It was a bold idea that inspired many viewers to take a closer look at a war they thought they knew. More importantly, it allowed people to see up-close the lives of the actual soldiers that fight our wars. In doing so, the film gave audiences a deeper understanding of what is asked of soldiers in a time of war, and what responsibilities we have to them.

Here’s a short installation piece Tim made that is a precursor/supplement to Restrepo, titled Sleeping Soldiers — (2009) Camera + Directed by Tim Hetherington, Edit + Sound design by Magali Charrier.
(In Tim’s own words): “The work was made in 2007-8 while I was following a platoon of US Airborne Infantry based in the Korengal Valley of Eastern Afghanistan. This is a single screen version of the original 3-screen installation that was first show in New York in 2009 (the original 3-screen version was designed as an immerisve installation, and not for the small screen).”

Sleeping Soldiers_single screen (2009) from Tim Hetherington on Vimeo.

Yesterday, the Hetherington family released a statement saying, “It is with great sadness we learned that our son and brother photographer and filmmaker Tim Hetherington was killed today in Misrata, Libya by a rocket-propelled grenade. Tim will be remembered for his amazing images and for the documentary Restrepo which he co-produced with his friend Sebastian Junger. That film was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary in 2011. Tim was in Libya to continue his ongoing multimedia project to highlight humanitarian issues during time of war and conflict. He will be forever missed.”

Here was Tim’s last message posted on his Facebook page (written the day after the Academy Awards):
“I’m particularly proud of my ‘community’ – people who dedicate their lives to inform us about world despite the difficulties, dangers, and criticisms inherent in making such communication. You all rock. Thanks too to those who let us intrude into their lives. Finally, thanks to my friends, family, and colleagues for the support over the years and for putting up with me – I love you all. And now I guess it’s forwards.”

No, Tim, it is us who are proud — proud to have known you, and proud of your noble dream to record and share the truth in all of its complexity… and even its simplicity.

This article originally appeared at Parcbench.

Empire of Lies is Klavan’s fast-paced, gritty novel that features a conservative Christian protagonist who uncovers an extremist Muslin plot to kill hundreds, but can’t convince a duplicitous media of the terrible truth. Think of it as a kind of North by Northwest meets the War on Terror.  The 2008 political thriller was a daring poke in the eye to the elitist New York and Hollywood left. His flawed heroes are part of what sets his writing apart. They’re made of flesh and blood with their own personal failings. “That’s my nature, I can’t write them any other way.”

Klavan’s erudite style and gutsy prose in books and screenplays like True Crimes, Don’t Say a Word, The Animal Hour, Corruption, Dynamite Road and the recently released Identity Man have earned him dazzling reviews, incredible sales, prestigious writing awards and international acclaim. His popular and no-holds-barred young adult series The Homelander, deals with the exploits of a teenager who wakes up to find himself in a radical Muslim United States and fights back.     

“As a writer you’re artist and business man. You are your business, but you have to speak the truth, too.  In the past I’d get two-hundred reviews on any of my other books, all great. Empire of Lies got one major review, which accused me of being a right-wing crackpot. Can I prove that happened because the central character is a conservative Christian and the bad guys are the media and Islamic jihadists?  No, but it all seems pretty strange.” 

Last year Klavan caused more than a few Hollywood lefties to choke on their morning croissants when he published a Los Angeles Times opinion piece dealing with the liberal blacklisting of film industry conservatives. Several so-called Hollywood journalists attacked Klavan demanding proof with a snooty attitude of, “We all know that conservative writers and filmmakers are just not as creative as liberals.” 

A necessary tenet of most conservatives in Hollywood, besieged by a camouflaged brand of liberal fascism is not to out one of your own that has spoken in confidence. Klavan’s guarded list of those who have suffered left-of-center prejudice is indeed long,  so instead he speaks openly of his own experiences.  “Besides my novels, I’ve made a good living writing scripts for a number of years.  I remember giving probably the best pitch on a project I’ve ever given.  Afterward the producer was making small talk and said something about that ‘evil bastard (President) Bush.’  When I’m in a meeting and someone says America is stupid or evil I won’t let that pass.”

Klavan is an innately polite individual, so I can tell firmness, but not rudeness was inherent in his reply.  “I let this producer know I was on other side and the whole mood changed to an obvious ‘don’t let the door hit you in the… on the way out.’  Then the phone stopped ringing.”

The successful writer actually wants everyone to have his say, even if he disagrees with your take on matters.  That’s the American way, which makes it Klavan’s way.  Not because it’s blind adherence, but because it’s fair, decent common sense.  “Hollywood has made something like fifteen movies where the American military and the CIA are the bad guys in the War on Terror.  None of which were successful.  They made these movies for the acceptance of the liberal elites, who they want to associate with and get praise from. Where are the movies with Americans as the good guys? We’re at war, but Hollywood is still stuck in Vietnam.” 

Klavan observes that these films have squandered hundreds of millions of dollars. “In how many other businesses are you not punished for your bad acts?  These films flop here, but provide comfort to the enemy by bashing America and our troops. The studios sometimes make up the difference on foreign distribution and sales, so everyone looks the other way.  A really great HBO film like Taking Chance, about the escorting of a fallen Marine’s body back to his native Wyoming was one of the networks most successful films last year.  The old studios actually serviced their audience, the average American.  These industry people today look down their noses at the average American, and it’s costing them millions.”   

Klavan isn’t venting either. I can tell that he’s thought this all out very, very well. “I’ve read the same books the left has read. And I’ve read the books that they pretend that they’ve read. The Hollywood elites thinks there is virtue in their culture of lies that America is evil and that Islamo-fascism somehow has a moral equivalence to Western values. After all, they’re the ones who invented Islamo-phobia. You can be completely politically correct and still be absolutely evil.  What is so wrong about thinking that these guys are really bad when they want to kill me for not worshipping Allah?  A guy who flies a plane into the World Trade Center, isn’t he a bad Muslim?” 

 Witness Hollywood’s most royal left-winger, Bill Maher, and his recent conversion on the subject of radical Muslims versus Western culture. Has he been reading his Klavan?

Two years ago the then fifty-two-year old writer managed to get embedded with a combat unit in Afghanistan for several weeks. “I wasn’t there to be a ‘macho war correspondent,’ but I needed to assure myself that what I was writing was the truth.”  He found the American troops and the loyal Afghan Muslims fighting the Taliban and Al Qaeda some of the most dedicated people he’d ever met.  “I was only there for two weeks, I was never in the military and I kept thinking ‘Am I nuts, I could get shot.’  But those troops were some of the best people I’ve ever known, they really believe in what they’re doing. Every day our perimeter was protected by Muslim cops and troops.”       

Klavan might almost be considered a conservative and literary “Man for All Seasons.” His novels hopscotch between elegant ghost stories to hardened modern detective noir and ground-breaking political thrillers, including his just-released Identity Man that deals with the real costs behind a second lease on life.  He has published numerous insightful opinion pieces in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and the Washington Post, as well as the Los Angeles Times. Who else but Klavan could so skillfully show that the plot of Toy Story 3 really does represent a celebration of conservative values and ideals?  His popular Klavan On The Culture feature on PJTV always hits the mark with smart and incisive humor on such left-wing taboo subjects as “Does Islam Suck?” and “Political Correctness Kills.” 

Loony, elitist liberals are always easy prey in the sights of this rational thinking, UC Berkeley and real-life educated writer who is matter-of-fact about his own deeply held conservative values and Christian beliefs.  “It kind of started for me during the Reagan period. I identified myself as a liberal, but I found certain things didn’t make sense. When I looked at the conservative side, I found there were a number of things I agreed with.” 

Klavan does point out with some optimism that, “Things are getting better for conservatives in Hollywood. It started with films like 300, then The Blindside, Grand Torino and now Taken.  We have a long way to go, but my phone has started to ring again.”

One thing does bother him though, “The one place conservatives in the arts fall down is in building a body of reviews, awards and creating our own grants. Writers and filmmakers are part of the arts community and we all crave recognition. That recognition is what will help us reclaim the culture, and that’s where the real battle that matters is.”

[Ed. Note: Tomorrow look for a Brad Thor's "Identity Man" review and the first part of two exclusive excerpts.]

The contrast in what resulted from these two cinematic call to arms is as stark as it is revealing.

Paul Haggis and Julie Christie wear orange ribbons to the 2008 Oscars on behalf of the terrorists held at Gitmo.

In 1941, Hollywood both figuratively and literally went to war. Clark Gable, Jimmy Stewart, Mickey Rooney and many of the biggest stars of the day would eventually serve in the military and do so with great distinction. With the help of others, Bette Davis and John Garfield worked tirelessly to organize and run the Hollywood Canteen to bring Hollywood directly to our servicemen. And when they weren’t selling hundreds of millions of dollars worth of war bonds here at home, too many movie stars to count went overseas to give our boys a firsthand taste of celebrity glamour and home. 

And then there were the films… literally hundreds of them meant to boost stateside morale, meant to remind us Why We Fight, meant to help America win the war.

In every sense of the word, this was Hollywood’s finest moment, where a community that was largely run by conservatives willingly set aside their political differences and united to rally around their commander-in-chief for the cause of America and the defeat of tyranny. 

Fast forward to today…

Never has an industry been more cravenly political and morally blind than Hollywood during our present struggle to defeat Islamic extremism. Tinseltown’s response to President Bush and America and our troops has been nothing short of the middle finger of betrayal. 

Though it remains the finest example of exactly what this country needs more of from our entertainment community, ”24″ was greenlit prior to 9/11. And yes, there was the safely sterile “United 93,” Oliver Stone’s  narrowly and safely focused “World Trade Center,” and ABC’s “Path to 9/11″ miniseries (which, for purely left-wing political purposes, the network refuses to rebroadcast or release on DVD). Regardless, these are the few exceptions that only prove the rule.

In January 1942, actress Carole Lombard died in a plane crash. She was on her way home to husband Clark Gable after selling two-million dollars worth of war bonds at a rally in her home state of Indiana.

In the darkest days of the War on Terror and during the worst of it in Iraq when our soldiers and Marines and the Iraqi people could’ve used any help they could get, the anti-American Leftists who currently infest the film-making community sided with our enemy through the production of one propaganda piece of moral equivalence after another; a celluloid flood of dishonest, divisive and morally illiterate films each created with the obvious intent of undermining America’s resolve to defeat terrorism and to create an ally in the Middle East through the righteous (and costly) liberation of the Iraqi and Afghan people.  Furthermore, through a number of insidious documentaries, one of the freest and wealthiest industries in all of human history spent millions to produce and promote the worst of America through the creation of cinematic mountains based on conspiratorial mole hills.  

To further their nihilist agenda, Leftist Hollywood would see 25 million innocent Iraqis abandoned into a meat grinder of terrorism and death squads. Most unforgivably, in film after film after film, these moral degenerates have attacked our troops as dupes, victims, monsters, and no better than the enemy.

This hasn’t been the work of just edgy, indy outsiders either. Some of the biggest names in the business are behind this assembly line of artistic embarrassments that – at best, by default — give aid and comfort and side with the most vicious, imperialist, racist, sexist, anti-Semitic, homophobic, and theocratic enemy we have ever faced. And even with each of these cinematic disgraces bombing at the box office, our fat and privileged “Patriots Through Dissent“ have even more planned. 

There are certainly exceptions, those like Gary Sinise whose efforts on behalf of our service men and women have been classy, apolitical and tireless. But again, these are the exceptions that prove the rule.

Despite the tireless efforts of Leftist Hollywood (and their media allies), Iraq is now closer to success than ever, America hasn’t been attacked again, and the president they worked so hard to elect has held tight to the policies of his ”evil” and/or “stupid” predecessor, including rendition, Gitmo and the Patriot Act. 

And so we can only hope that the appeasers who make up today’s Vichy Hollywood live long enough to see the history they are on the wrong side of forever document them as the disgraceful cowards they are.