President Trump can take heart from Ernest Hemingway…
Those last years of his life were a nightmare for Hemingway. In the end he was being zapped with electric currents to bring him back to his senses. Or so the doctors assumed as a solution to his delusions and paranoia. But he suffered greatly from that procedure – and he may not have been so delusional, after all.
Certainly he could write no more. Not after his brain was fried. Enfeebled, he could not help but submit to a System that demanded his compliance.
Instead of getting better, he got worse, until he ended it all with a shotgun blast to the head.
No one believed him until the facts proved him correct. (Too late for Hemingway.)
Of the last decade of Hemingway’s life, no one tells it better than A.E. Hotchner, the writer who chronicled Hemingway’s final chapter in two marvelous books, first “Papa Hemingway” and later ldquo;Hemingway in Love.” Hotchner was a friend. He tells all close-up and firsthand.
He was there with Hemingway when Hemingway was still strong and healthy as a man and as a writer -- and then when it all fell apart. The signs of decay became obvious when Hemingway grew suspicious of nearly everyone. He was being stalked. He was being wiretapped.
So he believed and he was especially fearful of the FBI and the IRS. That car that just pulled up? That was THEM, and so were those two men who just entered the restaurant. That was his state of mind, day to day, and he was sure that his phone had been tapped.
The experts assured him that he was imagining plots and schemes that did not exist.
There was no surveillance of him. It was all in his mind, the experts insisted.
But was he really hallucinating? No doubt Hemingway had issues, something had snapped, but now this from Hotchner’s “Hemingway in Love” –
“Fifty years after his death, in response to a Freedom of Information [petition], the FBI released its Hemingway file. It revealed that beginning in the 1940s J. Edgar Hoover had placed Ernest under surveillance because he was suspicious of Ernest’s activities in Cuba.
“Over the following years, agents filed reports on him and tapped his phones. The surveillance continued all through his confinement at St. Mary’s Hospital. It is likely that the phone in the hall outside his room was tapped and that nurse Susan may well have been an FBI informant.”
Yes, he had complained about the nurses and even the doctors and no one believed him until the facts proved him correct. (Too late for Hemingway.)
Which of course brings us up to date and here we go again with another larger than life American, the President himself, Donald Trump, who swears that Obama had him snooped. No one believes Trump, either – at least not the people who count, beginning with the news media.
But (supposedly) neither the FBI, through James Comey, nor various Congressional committees studying the matter can find anything to support Trump’s suspicions.
That’s what they say and in today’s hearing before the House Intelligence Committee, FBI Director Comey put it like this: “With respect to the President’s tweets about alleged wiretapping directed at him by the prior Administration, I have no information that supports those tweets.”
Well then, no information means no information either way, so Trump can still be right until proven wrong.
But we are left with the impression – now making headlines -- that Trump’s claim has been debunked. Not quite – though the entire hearing was an effort, by the Democrats, led by ranking member Adam Schiff, to debunk and to destroy Trump, period.
Schiff was relentless in making statements, posing as questions, that would always tie Trump and members of his staff to the Russians…the Russians…the Russians.
For the Democrats it will always be the Russians, and indeed Comey handed them the banner of the day, that yes, the FBI is probing those alleged ties.
Finally, Chairman Devin Nunes, GOP, asked about Hillary and her connections to the Russians…the Russians…the Russians. Is that being investigated?
Comey would not say during a hearing that was tilted entirely against President Donald J. Trump. The Democrats came our strong and prepared.
Not so the GOP, the very members of Trump’s party. Trump could have used more help.
But then, neither the Democrats nor the Republicans will ever fully understand President Trump.
Trump operates on instinct and his instincts have served him well – well enough to make it to the top, against all odds.
The odds are still against him – but betting against him is still not recommended as a smart bet.
New York-based bestselling American novelist Jack Engelhard writes regularly for Arutz Sheva. His books, including “The Bathsheba Deadline,” are available from Amazon and other retailers. Engelhard wrote the international bestseller “Indecent Proposal” and the award-winning Montreal memoir “Escape from Mount Moriah.” His latest is “News Anchor Sweetheart.” He is the recipient of the Ben Hecht Award for Literary Excellence. Website: www.jackengelhard.com