Updated 5/7/08
Stephen King must really be desperate to sell whatever drivel he’s managed to translate from his demented brain to the keyboard.
Last year, Stephen King demonstrated what a pathetic coward he is, by suggesting that Jenna Bush, the daughter of President Bush should be water-boarded. Apparently that little publicity stunt, funded by Time Magazine, didn’t manage to revive his career, so he’s trying again.
Yesterday, Noel Sheppard, of Newsbusters, reported that King said to a bunch of high-school students:
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.
Now, you’d think a professional author could make his point without plagiarizing election-loser John Kerry, but apparently not. But that’s not where the story stops.
King, apparently not a believer in Constitutional First Amendment rights for anyone but himself, sent his minions to harrass Noel Sheppard, and many were happy to comply. Sheppard reports:
Well, it turns out King wrote about my piece at his website, and instructed readers to “find Sheppard on the internet” — please notice the embedded link goes to my NewsBusters blog! — and write me with text that included ‘Hi, Noel—Stephen King says to shut up and I agree’…(more)
So, what happened when fans of Newsbusters, predictably, high-tailed it right over to King’s site to express their displeasure? Well, King shut down, his message board, and went on vacation.
What a coward.
(Hat-Tip: Lance)
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Of course- Liberals can’t take being on the receiving end of the criticism. Stephen King should thank the military for defending his right to make a fool of himself.
Wow, maybe you should get your facts straight instead of regurgitating what Noel Sheppard feeds to you. If you’d care to research, the message board outage was planned long in advance of this nonsense from NewsBusters.
ShutUpNoelSheppard.com
“So, what happened when fans of Newsbusters, predictably, high-tailed it right over to King’s site to express their displeasure? Well, King shut down, his message board, and went on vacation.”
Ah, so the Stephen King Trolls have found us…what took you all so long?
And they come complete with a website and donation box…that’s the funniest thing I’ve seen all day.
Thanks.
“Ah, so the Stephen King Trolls have found us…what took you all so long?”
Oh, I don’t know, perhaps the fact that NewsBusters is apparently not granting access to new users who wish to post because the obviously only want their views to prevail?
What’s sad - and maybe the funniest thing that I’ve seen in a while - is that the Sheppard leads his flock in bashing King’s forum-closing, yet won’t allow new users to post on his own site.
I run a fan site about the Dark Tower (series of books by Stephen King). I am not affiliated with him in any way but I was quoted in the original blog about this.
I can’t believe how much people use “patriotism” as a way to stifle free speech. Let the man have his say, don’t buy his books if you don’t like it but the personal attacks make no sense.
Matt
Owner
TheDarkTower.com
Thank you for your comment, Matt, and basically, I agree with you. Stephen King is free to say whatever he wants, and Newsbusters (which is a site dedicated to news analysis) is free to do what they do. Likewise, the rest of us are free to have opinions and express them.
This situation got out of hand when King expressly directed his readers to go find Sheppard on the internet and harrass him to try to shut him up. That does not consitute “free speech.” It’s a type of fascism. Anyone who does that can and should expect a (verbal) back-lash from people who truly believe in free speech.
Sure, and I believe he can handle the very minor backlash that has been created. He is savvy enough to understand what his words might do.
I don’t care about backlash in a civil manner but people are now writing cuss words all over his wiki article and making personal attacks against the man.
Tell me that makes sense at all.
No, I would not encourage or condone vandalizing his wiki, or making “personal attacks,” that go beyond simply stating an opinion about his public profile and statements he has made publicly.
I’ve never been a fan of the horror genre, so I’ve obviously never been a Stephen King fan, but I do know that a lot of people of a lot of political persuasions have enjoyed reading and watching his work. It’s a shame that so many famous personalities use their public influence to assert themselves as experts in the political arena. I know that there are a lot of Stehpen King fans who must have been very disappointed to read some of King’s political statements lately.
BTW - I see you are a former soldier. Thank you for your service to our country.
Thank you Jenn, you are an amazingly nice person and I can only hope that those with opposing view points could discuss them as well as we have.
That’s really the problem with this for me, people who are so reactionary. Stephen King basically said there should be a choice for kids like that and he’s right. His choice of words would have been my first one but I believe that actual fans of Mr. King know that he is very much against the war and very much for the soldiers. So his comments weren’t a suprise to me, especially since he framed them as his opinion and he has a right to one like we all do.
He did not personally attack anyone like he is being personally attacked now. People making fun of how he looks, his struggles with drug abuse…the “F” word all over his wiki…
When I was deployed to the Gulf in the early 90’s, he used to stand out there and sign books for service people boarding planes in Bangor. That is the last stop on American soil and a very hard plane to catch, believe me.