Tuesday, July 01, 2008

Dead Man Talking

Tomorrow, a new novel by New York Best Selling author Brad Thor - The Last Patriot - will be released.

Already he’s getting death threats. Why? Read the interview with Glenn Beck.

Here are some excerpts.

GLENN: Brad, I want to ask you a question and I mean this in all seriousness as a friend.

THOR: Sure.

GLENN: Do you remember the last time you were in New York and we were together?

THOR: Yes.

GLENN: Do you remember you -- and I don't want to get into any specifics. Do you remember that you and I, you had some questions for me and I said, let's take a walk.

THOR: I remember the walk and the talk, yes.

GLENN: Okay. Do you remember what I said to you about halfway through when I stopped and looked at you and said, you have to decide what you're willing to die for. Do you remember that?

THOR: Yes, I do.

GLENN: You were asking me questions about how -- you know, what I believe in certain things and what was going on and what my feeling was, et cetera, et cetera on how to deal with things.

THOR: Correct.

GLENN: I just went on a book tour and I will not, nor can I, I'm not allowed to, tell you the precautions that I had to take to go onto a book tour. I tell you, Brad, right now that when I had that talk with you a year ago, I thought I knew I was prepared to die. It wasn't until Christmas about three days before that I really, truly realized that I was prepared to die for what I believe in because of my book tour. There were so many death threats on me at that time and we had to take so many precautions that nobody knows about that I, in that month of December, had to come to grips with the fact that I may die and be shot and gunned down in the streets. It is not a pleasant -- it's easy for me to say a year ago to you, know what you're prepared to die for.

THOR: True.

GLENN: It's another when you are actually in that situation. Brad, I've only read three chapters. Last night I read the first three chapters with my mouth open and thought to myself, my friend Brad may lose his life for a fiction book. Have you and your wife had that talk?

THOR: We have. We have, and I've had the talk with, as you mentioned before I came on, some of my very well connected friends who are in law enforcement, who specialize in security for congress, the President, so on and so forth. Glenn, at the end of the day I think all that's necessary, everything -- we hear this phrase all the time but it's true. All that's necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.

[ ... ]

GLENN: Okay. That is a mantra of mine in today's world. You have to decide what you're willing to die for.

Now, what is the principle in this book? And I respect you if you say it's freedom of speech; I have the right, then I respect you but what is it in this book you are willing to die for?

THOR: Listen. I don't want to die for -- I definitely don't want to die for a book but at the end of the day if we keep backing off -- and that's what I said. We are experiencing Sharia inch by inch every time we cower and refuse to publish a book or something like that.

GLENN: I know.

THOR: We extend more ground to the Islamists, not to Islam. I have a lot of Muslim friends. I just got back from Afghanistan, spent my time with some of the most incredible people in the world who happen to be Muslim. The last thing I would want to do is offend them with something I'm doing. I don't think mainstream Muslims are going to find this book offensive.

GLENN: It's not the mainstream Muslims you are talking about.

THOR: It's the nut jobs, the Qur'animals as I like to call them. And you know what, let them be insulted. I do not care. My fellow countrymen need to know about the threat from these people.

GLENN: Okay. Brad, that is totally cool. I just want to say to you as your friend.

THOR: Nice knowing you, thanks, I got the message.

Even fiction authors need guts in this day and age.

Read the whole interview.

2 comments:

Damien said...

Hopefully they won't be able to kill him, and if they try, I hope they will be arrested and severally punished for attempted murder.

Anonymous said...

That novel had better be prominently displayed amongst tomorrow morning's "lay-downs" at the Borders where I work or I will want to know the reason why. For sure a copy will be going home with me. And I will make the point at the morning meeting that the author has had to deal with death threats. There's at least one manager there who will actually give a damn. The rest of the staff will just give me funny looks.

I wear a little "First they came for the Danish cartoonists" pin and finally today one of the managers (the ditzy one with the nose ring and the tramp stamp) squinted at it and asked what it said. I told her. She was very puzzled, never having heard of the "Danish cartoonists" despite the fact that our upstanding company gained some notoriety for having bailed on stocking the issue of TIA with the Mo cartoon on the cover.