AT LAST WE DISCOVER THE MAN BEHIND THAT CURTAIN

Look, we all know there are many curtains behind which stand many surprises. Perhaps the biggest surprise -- and here I'm beating the NEW YORK TIMES to a scoop! -- is a small circle of executives who rent a locked conference room in the Plaza Hotel [room212]. These 14 men and women meet six times a year to strategize most of what 330 million Americans are feeling.

Feelings...? That's right. Feelings are the agenda; fortunes are the goal. Here's how it works.

These are the power-brokers in the feeling-business. The nationwide ventures which package, promote and project what most Americans are feeling about their lives...their jobs...their leaders...their future. Two from network television; two from the cable channels; two from Hollywood; two from the printed media; two from the blogging community; two from the theatre community; two from the sports community.

I've never attended the secret conferences, but if I told you who these 14 are, it would be easy for you to understand just how they seize and stir our deepest feelings. About our heroes & villains; dreams & fears; passions & purposes. And as go a nation's feelings, so go their votes! their purchases! their beliefs! their devotions!

We live in an age which speaks to the power of the human mind, but at the end of the day we all discover it's been our heart not our head that rules. Which is why the 14 cast ballots to determine who and what will get the next multi-million-dollar treatment. In television (hit series, news coverage, Sunday Morning interviews, guest shots on Dave & Jay)....in films (the stars and scripts) ...in headline coverage (from front page to op-eds)...on the stage (whose plays and music get financed).

The next time you support a candidate, cheer a team, love a movie, fantasize about the latest hunk and heroine... do you actually think YOU'VE discovered them? Come on, folks! They and what they represent in your life have been carefully discovered and planned months ago. In life there are no coincidences.

But, hey, that's OK. If you want to believe your feelings are authentically yours, fine. And if you want to believe my secret society is authentic, that's fine too. Take your choice....