Posted by
Daniel Crandall on Thursday, March 20, 2008 12:12:46 AM
I've been reading and hearing a lot of commentary about
David Mamet's conversion after a lifetime of being a "brain dead liberal". I have been skeptical of this, though I am happy, knowing that, at the very least, Mr. Mamet is taking conservative arguments seriously. It would be wonderful to see a Mamet play on Broadway that doesn't trash America, and hand a propaganda victory to our Islamo-Nazi enemies.
Exactly why I was skeptical eluded me, until I stumbled upon an ISI Forum topic, begun by Jeremy Beer, titled "
David Mamet gets happy". In a handful of sentences Mr. Beer helped me gain understand my skepticism. David Mamet's political conversion essay, Beer writes,
"... illustrates that this is what our political categories come down to:
1. If you are a liberal and upset about things, you call yourself a liberal.
2.
If you are a liberal but pretty happy about things (as indeed you
should be if you are a liberal, as Mamet points out), you call yourself
a conservative.
Now, mightn't there be a couple of categories left out of this beautiful analysis?
I am glad to know that Mr. Mamet is reading Thomas Sowell, Milton Freidman, Paul Johnson and Shelby Steele. I'm delighted to read that he feels the American military "is ... made up of those men and women who actually risk their lives to protect the rest of us from a very hostile world." I'm thrilled that an elite member of the New York artistic community understands that "classes in the United States are mobile, not static, which is the Marxist view." But just how much a conversion took place? I ask this question because of the lies regarding President Bush Mamet perpetuates in his essay.
"Bush got us into Iraq" - No, actually it was Pres. George H. W. Bush, that began the war with Iraq. Pres. Clinton made regime change in Iraq American policy. Pres. Bush, whose hand was forced by the altered climate created by 9/11, put into action what these two presidents started.
"Bush stole the election in
Florida" - No one but the most died-in-the-wool loony liberal believes this. Every study shows this is nothing but a pernicious lie.
"Bush outed a CIA agent" - Wrong, again, Mr. Mamet. The liberal holdover from the Clinton presidency, Richard Armitage "outed" Valerie Plame. Not George W. Bush.
"Bush lied
about his military service" - How? Where? Pres. Bush is, as far as I know, proud of his military service in the Texas Air National Guard and never once claimed more nor less than this service. If anyone lied about Pres. Bush's military service it is the Left which continue the Big Lie that Pres. Bush dodged the Vietnam era draft. I would be willing to bet that David Mamet's votes during the 90's were cast for a very real draft dodger, William J. Clinton, who ran off to England rather than risk the possibility of military service in Vietnam.
"Bush was in bed with the Saudis" - The United States has been "in bed with the Saudis" ever since oil was discovered beneath the Saudi deserts and America shipped the equipment and know-how, allowing this corrupt regime to tap the massive reserves upon which they sat. That this is not healthy for anyone is rather self-evident. To put this solely at Pres. Bush's feet is, at the very least, dishonest.
I do not think that being a conservative means one must drink the Bush kool-aid. However, I do think that a principle conservative tenant is devotion to the truth. David Mamet, despite his "conversion", still believes a barrel load of lies about our current President.
So excuse me if I'm rather skeptical about this conservative "conversion" of a New York playwright.