According to Stephen King, conservative "hate" of Barack Obama is similar to the anger that led to the assassination of John Kennedy. Appearing on Friday's Hardball to promote "11/22/63," his new novel, the author compared, "Here is where hate will get you eventually. This is what happens. Finally, it's the barrel of a gun."
Discussing his book, a work of historical fiction about stopping JFK's murder, King asserted, "And also, there's also been this sort of atmosphere of real hate and obstructionism that surrounded both men." He continued, "So, I began to think history repeats itself and at that point I thought to myself, 'You know I really would like to write this book.'" It took liberal anchor Chris Matthews to point out the obvious: Lee Harvey Oswald was no conservative.
King dodged, "...But the fact is Oswald's communist tendencies were basically the outgrowth of a disturbed mind."
It's odd that Matthews would challenge King on this point. On October 28, 2011, he made almost exactly the same argument, saying of JFK on November 22, 1963, "[Kennedy] was living the life of an American politician, trying to figure things out politically, trying to figure out what was in the water down there in Dallas that made some people so viciously right-wing. An hour later, he was gone."
King made a similar point on the November 8 Today.
A transcript of the November 11 exchange can be found below:
STEPHEN KING: And I started to think about it again in 2008, because there are a lot of parallels between John F. Kennedy and Barack Obama: The age. They're both young politicians. They both spent a short time in the Senate. They both have beautiful wives. They both have beautiful kids. And also, there's also been this sort of atmosphere of real hate and obstructionism that surrounded both men. So, I began to think history repeats itself and at that point I thought to myself, "You know I really would like to write this book." And one of the things I that I'd kinda like to say is "Here is where hate will get you eventually. This is what happens. Finally, it's the barrel of a gun."
CHRIS MATTHEWS: Yeah, but it was a communist sympathizer. It was Lee Harvey Oswald, a man of the most extraordinary left by our standards who killed him. So, how do you put that together with the right-wing mood of Dallas?
KING: Well, it's certainly a contrast between the mood, and I think a lot of people in Dallas assumed at the time that it was somebody right-wing or that it was somebody associated with the CIA, or this, that and the other thing, but the fact is Oswald's communist tendencies were basically the outgrowth of a disturbed mind. He was somebody who wanted to be famous. When he and Marina flew back to the United States- well, they came back on a ship, but they flew from New Jersey to Fort Worth to be with Lee's brother Robert, he told Marina all the things that they were supposed to say when they were greeted at the airport by throngs of reporters. And when nobody showed up, he was a really unhappy camper. He was a fame junky.
