According to the Hill Newspaper, former President Bill Clinton and thriller writer James Patterson intend to collaborate on a novel. Plot details are not readily available, but the title, “The President is Missing,” kind of speaks for itself. A 1967 novel, “The President’s Plane is Missing,” touched on the same concept that the title of the Clinton-Patterson novel suggests. In the previous novel Air Force One crashes, and it is uncertain whether the president was on board since all the bodies are burned, and the story took place before DNA testing.
The book had a Cold War plot with an incompetent vice president planning to launch a preemptive strike against China. The book became a 1973 TV movie starring Buddy Ebsen and Peter Graves.
As of this writing, it is unknown which president the fictional missing president will be based on. If the POTUS of the book is based on Clinton, all sorts of salacious possibilities suggest themselves. Clinton was the one president in the history of the Republic who was is the greatest danger of falling into a honey trap. On the other hand, maybe the missing fictional president absconded somewhere to negotiate a treaty with a beautiful, North Korean diplomat/spy.
Clinton will not be the first former politician to try his hand at fiction (aside from presidential memoirs, of course.) Former Speaker Newt Gingrich has had a successful career at novel writing, churning out a series of alternate history books, historical epics, and thrillers.
It is not as if Clinton is inexperienced at coming up with convincing sounding stories, after all.
“The President is Missing” is a sure best seller, considering the Patterson writes those and Clinton’s name on the front cover is a selling point. The book is likely to become a big screen movie, especially considering that the Clintons are still beloved in Hollywood.
But who will appear in it and who will direct?
John Travolta appeared as a Clinton-like presidential candidate in the film version of “Primary Colors.” Ciaran Hinds, who played Julius Caesar in the HBO “Rome” series was another Clinton-like former president in the short-lived “Political Animals.” But both of those portrayals were a little roguish.
The president in the book is likely to be heroic, even if he is based on Clinton.
One can imagine Spielberg trying his hand at the material and casting Tom Hanks as the fictional missing president. Hanks was considered for “Primary Colors” but passed on the opportunity out of his friendship with the Clinton family. But one can see Hanks as a heroic president, sort of part JFK part Teddy Roosevelt.
