Stephen King and political discourse

"I don't want to sound like an ad, a public service ad on TV, but the fact is if you can read, you can walk into a job later on. If you don't, then you've got, the Army, Iraq, I don't know, something like that. It's, it's not as bright. So, that's my little commercial for that."

Mr. King made those comments in Washington DC, while conducting a writer's symposium for high school students. Unlike his unique writing style, Mr. King's comments were nothing more than a rehash of John Kerry's comments made earlier, where he said the following:

"You know, education, if you make the most of it, you study hard, you do your homework, and you make an effort to be smart, you can do well. And if you don't - you get stuck in Iraq."

Hopefully, Mr. King's comments were made in the context of the importance of sourcing your material or perhaps a discussion of plagiarism.

The King comment got me thinking about the political discourse in this country and the endless stream of these types of stupid comments -- across the entire political spectrum. Surely the Reverend Falwell's comments on gays, Lou Dobb's anti-immigrant diatribes and the old Republican favorite "welfare queen" story could join with Mr. King's comments. Add to that -- Obama's clinging to religion and guns, the almost daily stereotypical comments about evangelicals or that old democrat standard of "Bush the moron", and you start to see that the King comments, unfortunately, are simply a part of what passes as political commentary in this country.

I think Will Rogers had it about it right when said, "When ignorance gets started it knows no bounds."

Indeed.