Getting Kreskin to solve the stalemate? Amazing

Frank Cerabino

Wednesday, March 20, 2013 | 2 a.m.

I think it’s time we bring in the Amazing Kreskin.

I’m talking about finding a solution to the political stalemate in Washington. The mutually despised “sequestration” cuts were supposed to lead to compromise between the two political parties. But that hasn’t worked.

So maybe this calls for something more drastic, such as giving a 78-year-old thought reader from New Jersey a crack at saving the country.

“I would need to gather four or five of the party leaders on both sides and put them in a room for hours with no phones, no Internet, no contact with the outside world,” Kreskin told me.

Kreskin, the mentalist whose fame grew during dozens of appearances on “The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson,” said he’d be more than happy to save the country. If only somebody would ask.

“I need to set a psychological mindset,” he said, further explaining his idea of locking himself in a quiet room for hours with congressional leaders. “I won’t put them in a hypnotic trance.”

But it would be a state that more resembles love, he said.

“When people are in love, they are able to adapt,” he said. “That’s the problem now. Nobody wants to adapt. The way things are now, most of them should be on the Titanic because they’ve been such titanic failures.”

Kreskin says he’s politically independent. His involvement wouldn’t have any ideological baggage.

“I think I could get them to start thinking in harmony with each other,” he said. “They’re not willing to put themselves in the shoes of other people.”

This month, President Barack Obama quipped that he wasn’t able to do a “Jedi mind meld” with the GOP congressional leadership to break the political stalemate. Most of the commentary over that remark centered on Obama’s science-fiction blunder of combining the Jedi mind trick from “Star Wars” with the Vulcan mind meld from “Star Trek.”

But for Kreskin, this was more than a botched joke. He offered his services to Obama.

“All right, Mr. President, let’s take a giant step beyond science fiction,” Kreskin wrote on his website. “I know what I’m talking about because on television, I have both read and influenced the thoughts of ‘Star Trek’s’ Bill Shatner.”

The Jedi mind trick, Kreskin said, is not a trick at all, “but done legitimately by yours truly.”

Obama hasn’t called yet, Kreskin told me.

I was talking to Kreskin because he will be appearing in Palm Beach Gardens on Friday night, where he will do a show at Palm Beach State College that involves him reading the thoughts of the audience.

And he will be doing one of his favorite bits during the show to prove that he’s willing to gamble on his abilities.

“I will gather six or so people from the audience who do not know each other, and I will hand them my check,” he said.

The check is his fee for that night. While two of those audience members escort him out of the building and keep an eye on him, the other four pick a spot inside the auditorium to hide the check.

Then Kreskin is brought back inside. If he can’t find the check, he forfeits the fee.

“You’ve got admit — that’s a hell of a way to make a living,” he said.

Kreskin estimates that he has done that bit about 6,000 times, and by his counting, he has only failed to find the check nine times.

A guy with this kind of magical power might be just what’s needed to solve the gridlock in Washington.

And maybe for an extra incentive, after he corrals the congressional leaders in that room, he can hide all of their checks.

That may be the most magical move of all.