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 not as bright.

Today, we can take a look at the response from King, aimed toward those who have written about his comments, and condemned his statements. Here is his statement from Monday:

That a right-wing-blog would impugn my patriotism because I said children should learn to read, and could get better jobs by doing so, is beneath contempt.

Ok, I am not sure exactly which blog he is addressing. Evidently there was a conservative blogger, Noel Sheppard, who heard the original statement first hand and wrote about it on his blog. He compared the statements made by King to those made by John Kerry earlier in this election cycle, just as I did a few days ago. But anyway, back to the statement itself. I think King should have just apologized for his incredibly asinine remark, rather than just making it worse with this stupid statement! No one that I have read has blasted him for saying that children should learn to read, and to make that accusation is nothing but intellectual dishonesty. If he can’t figure out what is really being said, then maybe he isn’t as literate as everyone thinks…he can get the words, just not the meanings behind them.

Just to prove that he wasn’t sorry for the statement that he made back on April 4th, King went on to say:

I live in a National Guard town, and I support our troops, but I don’t support either the war or educational policies that limit the options of young men and women to any one career — military or otherwise.

That sounds to me like he is just reiterating the previous statements. If you are in the National Guard, or in the regular military, it is because of the “educational policies that limit the options of young men and women…” That means that they are just too dumb to be able to do anything else.

Let me repeat a point that I made in a previous post: Our military is more intelligent, and better educated today than it has ever been. No matter how many lame statements King makes, these statements are still an insult! One comment I read on another blog (I can’t remember which one) made a pretty good point. It said (and I am paraphrasing), “King made these statements when no soldiers were around…why don’t we invite a group of them to his next book signing and see if he is so outspoken…” Good question.

I must say, at least John Kerry had enough sense to apologize for his statements. I’m guessing King has backed himself into a corner, and he won’t be able to make an apology. He has already come out fighting. Lucky for him, none of those “dumb soldiers” are there to fight with him…

EDIT:  After doing a bit more research on this topic, I came across some more information that may benefit you as you consider the story.

First, the blogger whom King was blasting, who broke the story of King’s original remarks, is Noel Sheppard, who writes a blog on NewsBusters.org.  Be sure to jump over there and read up on all that has been happening with this story over the last few days.  It is certainly interesting.

Second, if you want to read more about Stephen King’s statements from his own perspective, you can visit his website and see the “non-apology” in its context.  You will have to scroll down a bit, as the news section of the site has one long page of entries.

“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.”

He later tried to act as if he had “misspoken” and that he was really speaking about President Bush. Really? The President Bush who attended Yale and earned a Bachelor’s Degree, and then Harvard Business School where he earned an MBA. I’m sure that he was able to do that, even though he really isn’t that smart, and he didn’t “study hard, do his homework, or make an effort to be smart.” President Bush has also been highly successful in business. He invested about $800,000 in the Texas Rangers in 1989, and then sold his share of the team in 1998 for $15 Million. Besides that, he has successfully run for several elected offices, and won. Oh, and one more thing…he won the presidency twice. Regardless of what the liberals have propagated for the last 8 years, this man is not stupid. He is not articulate! But, being articulate is not the sole identifier of one who is intelligent. If you take the body of work that George Bush has put together in the last 30 years, you have to be ignorant to think that he is stupid! You can see much more about the life of George Bush at Wikipedia, though you will have to weed through the liberal commentary and just pick out the facts. It is interesting that even in that article, every good thing accomplished by George Bush is painted in a bad light!

It is clear that John Kerry was not really talking about George Bush, so the only other conclusion is that he was talking about those who are serving in the military. I know this is dredging up old news, but it sets the stage for what came out in the last day or so. And that is, Stephen King’s comments. Speaking before a group of high school students at the Library of Congress, King had this to say:

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.

So, Kerry claimed that his comments were just a mistake. A blown joke. But, at the time, many of us thought that he was just reflecting the true liberal mindset. This quote from King makes it pretty clear that this really is the mindset of liberals…or at least this liberal.

Why are these quotes so troubling? Because they are derogatory to those who choose to sign up for our military forces. They have come to the conclusion that they don’t agree with the war, therefore everyone who is smart must agree with them. Therefore, if a person volunteers to sign up for a war they don’t agree with, they must be stupid, and unable to get a job anywhere else. There have been numerous claims to that effect made over the last five or six years. How often have you heard that our young people just couldn’t afford to get an education unless they joined the military, and let the government pay for it. Or that people sign up for the military because there aren’t any other jobs, after all, every factory has been shut down nation wide!  They don’t even consider the possibility that these young people are smart people, who believe in the military.  Liberals think that our military is supposed to be able to have a free will–that is they can fight when they want to, and not fight when they don’t want to.  But that is not the nature of a military force.  They fight when the Commander-in-Chief decides it is appropriate.  They believe in freedom, and so they fight when they are commanded to do so.  However, it is interesting that when Clinton was in office, the military was at an all time low.  Under Bush, the military has been the strongest it has been for a long time.  What we need to remember when considering those facts is that we have a volunteer force!  The military is not as large as it is right now only because the Bush administration has compelled it to be so, but because men and women have signed up, voluntarily, to protect this country, and its interests throughout the world.

Liberals should be furious with these high profile men speaking in such a depreciatory way toward our military.  How dare they say that our men and women in uniform are only in uniform because they are too stupid to do anything else.  We have the most intelligent, educated armed forces on the face of the earth.  If you don’t think this war should be fought, then say so–it is your right.  But, don’t insult the men and women of the armed forces.  I wonder if the same soldiers will still be stupid when they are under the command of a democratic president?

I, for one, will not insult those who choose to protect our country.  They give us the freedom that we have, and I appreciate the sacrifice that they have made to provide these freedoms.  In fact, they are the very ones who provide the freedom for these liberals to make their uniformed, ridiculous statements about the military!