This summer, Douglas MacKinnon released a novel entitled “The Apocalypse Directive” in which a fundamentalist US President uses his office to try to destroy the enemies of Christianity and bring about the apocalypse. Roll Call offered this summary:
Set in the near future, the novel centers on Ian Campbell, the deputy chief of staff to President Shelby Robertson, a religious zealot whose presidential decisions are based solely on his extreme view of Christianity. Campbell doesn’t share those beliefs; he’s a former Navy SEAL who’s jaded by the whole business of organized religion.
But to get the coveted White House gig, Campbell tricks Robertson into believing he shares the president’s religious views. Soon, Robertson is welcoming Campbell into a secret group calling themselves the “Christian Ambassadors,” whose goal is to advance the cause of Christianity and destroy those who oppose it.
Campbell soon learns that Robertson and his crew, made up of top military men and other government officials, are planning to launch a full-scale nuclear war to rid the earth of nonbelievers. Still fooling Robertson, Campbell is put in charge of a secret bunker built to provide a place for the Ambassadors to hide out during the slaughter, and he uses his new role to get more details on Robertson’s deadly plan before it is too late.
The use of the last name Robertson for this fictional president was undoubtedly intentional … but it turns out that it wasn’t actually a Pat Robertson presidency that MacKinnon was afraid of, it’s a Mike Huckabee one:
While doing publicity for my new novel “The Apocalypse Directive,” a number of interviewers asked me who served as the inspiration for the Evangelical President of the United States who professes to speak directly to God and so twists his Christian faith, that he is preparing to carry out the most heinous act known to humankind? Other than stressing that it was not George W. Bush, I mostly left the question unanswered as I moved on to the next subject.
Mike Huckabee’s renewed, juvenile, and un-Christian written assault on former rival Mitt Romney compels me to admit that it was he who served as the inspiration for the evil character.
I should probably point out as well that MacKinnon is not exactly some wild-eyed liberal:
Douglas MacKinnon was a press secretary to former Senator Bob Dole. He was also a writer for Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush and a special assistant for policy and communications in the Defense Department.
