In passing comments published in yesterday's New York Times Book review section, Stephen King explains how the previous Administration inspired the theme for his new new novel:
I enjoyed taking the Bush-Cheney dynamic and shrinking it to the small-town level. The last administration interested me because of the aura of fundamentalist religion that surrounded it and the rather amazing incompetency of those top two guys. I thought there was something blackly humorous in it. So in a sense, "˜Under the Dome' is an apocalyptic version of "˜The Peter Principle.'
