Word: santini
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...follow this: the secretary of defense is killed in a mysterious anthrax attack. Former maverick senator and Vietnam POW Michael Santini is called back to Washington to take his place and play the hero (unsurprisingly, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., gives the book a glowing endorsement). A Russian Mafia boss kills his president and sets his sights on the throne. He colludes with a brainy German gangster and a rogue Chinese general who’s planning a coup and may have tortured Santini in Vietnam. And did I mention the inhumanly beautiful Israeli assassin with whom Santini is romantically...
...consider the novel’s ostensible climax: Santini must race to China in a supersonic jet-plane in order to halt a misguided preemptive strike on North Korea that could result in World War III. But before he arrives, we’re treated to 30 pages of refueling and bureaucratic bickering...
...rare occasions that Cohen does move beyond this tedium, the novel feels like something a fifth grader would write. When Santini arrives with his six-pack abs in Tiananmen Square, he kills several soldiers single-handedly, shoots down a helicopter with a handgun, and then proceeds to kick the rogue general in the balls. If this is the way our leaders see the world, is it any wonder that things are such a mess...
...quit last month. But the return of Kappes, who declined interview requests last week, is receiving some mixed reviews. An official says that because of his stiff bearing and often militaristic management, the devoutly Catholic ex-Marine is referred to by some career CIA officers as the Great Santini, an allusion to the obstinate title character of the 1979 film. And House Intelligence Committee chairman Peter Hoekstra worries about installing military and intel insiders such as Hayden and Kappes. The White House has "raised the white flag on reform," he says. "Claim a win for the bureaucracy...
...what's the solution? Transparency and a willingness to listen and adapt can help. While November's unrest and arson attacks affected many suburbs around Paris, the town of Issy-les-Moulineaux to the south of the French capital was largely spared. There, Mayor Andr? Santini has bet heavily on technology infrastructure in a successful bid to attract international firms such as Hewlett-Packard and Cisco Systems. He's also used technology to interact more openly with Issy's 63,000 residents. Issy was the first French town to start an Internet-based local TV service, and last December...