Jack can't beat the Rapp

Still depressed over '24' going soft as Ted Kennedy's abs? Well weep no more. Looks like we have a new G-man patriot on the horizon -- one who could apparently beat the Jell-O out of Jack Bauer even before he went and got himself Oprahfied.

I've never read Vince Flynn, but his novels about CIA operative Mitch Rapp are popular enough to have just been bought with an eye to a new and beautiful franchise.

Variety reports:

Flynn has so far written nine novels, eight about the fictional Rapp, who possesses the ruthlessness and killing skills of Jason Bourne and the sleuthing talents of Jack Ryan.

Yeah, but is he on our side, really?

Flynn began the Rapp novels in 2000 with "Transfer of Power," in which the agent was assigned to stop Islamic terrorists who took control of the White House. In "Protect and Defend," Rapp and his longtime boss get ambushed in Iraq, and he becomes a killing machine to rescue his mentor before she is tortured.

That would be a big yes.

The studio and producers haven't decided yet which novel to use as the basis for the first film. Most involve Rapp defusing a global crisis in places like Saudi Arabia, Iran, Iraq or the U.S.

Sounds too good to be true, doesn't it? I Googled Vince Flynn immediately. First hit was a Q&A that began this-a-way:

Question: In the real world, how effective do you think torture is with Islamic terrorists?

A: Far more effective than liberals would have you believe. Congress really upset me with how they treated Attorney General Michael Mukasey and how the media pushed this question. Why aren’t reporters forcing senators and Congress to answer the same questions about torture? What do you think we should have done? Given them a lawyer, three square meals a day and let planes get hijacked?

Read the whole interview here. This guy is clearly one of us, or close enough for terrorist-greasing government work.

Regular readers of Libertas will certainly warm to his assertion later in the Q&a that "Hollywood is now saying people don’t want to watch movies about war. No, Americans don’t want to watch [bad] anti-American movies about war. Americans would love to watch a great movie where Mitch Rapp is meting out punishment to these crazy zealots, but I don’t know if Hollywood has the guts to do it."

Apparently someone has the guts. Or at least brains enough to know a sure bet when they see one. We all know a lot can happen between novel and film, and as The Kingdom proved, a single sissyneck scene can spoil the entire film.

Still... I have a warm and fuzzy feeling about this one.