New John Wayne bio wrongfully attacked by Wayne zealot in blogosphere

   The new biography of John Wayne, entitled When The Legend Became Fact - The True Life of John Wayne, was attacked this week by a blogger who runs a John Wayne fan site. In what can only charitably be called a "review," the blogger launches into a tirade against the book and its author, Richard Douglas Jensen.
   "I expected this to happen," Jensen said Sunday. "There are many people who revere the screen image of John Wayne without knowing anything about the facts of his life. I knew there'd be backlash, and that's fine."
   Jensen said the blogger doesn't even have his facts straight. "Oh, typically, you have bloggers who foam at the mouth and fire off opinions masquerading as 'facts.' Part of the job of a biographer is to find and reveal facts, not mythology. The book has over 22 pages of footnotes which document the information in the book. Also, many of the quotes in the book are directly from Wayne's own family. There is not one anonymous quote in the entire book."
   "What surprised me was that he took the time to research me and write a scathing attack on me personally," Jensen said. "But I'm a big boy. I've been shot at, stabbed and run over when I was a cop, and I've been targeted more than once by someone wanting to kill me during some high-profile criminal cases I've tried, so some chicken shit blogger doesn't worry me."
    Jensen's media tour in support of the book continues this week with a series of radio and television interviews throughout Florida.

    "People are interested in the book, and most who have read it -- unlike the blogger -- realize it paints a complete picture of a very complex, flawed, but ultimately heroic man."