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Stereotypes being what they are, when a Pulitzer-Prize winning and Oscar- and Tony-nominated writer tackles American electoral politics with his sharp pen, you typically expect to read an essay espousing liberal virtue. Not so with David Mamet. In an op-ed titled “A note to a stiff-necked people” that was recently published in the Los Angeles-based Jewish Journal, the writer of Glengarry Glen Ross, Speed-the-Plow, and The Verdict took fellow Jews to task for supporting Barack Obama. In a series of questions directed at the reliably liberal demographic, Mamet asks if Jewish-Americans are prepared to explain to their children how Obama’s policies will adversely impact them in the future: “Will you explain that whatever their personal beliefs, tax-funded institutions will require them to imbibe and repeat the slogans of the left, and that, should they differ, they cannot have a career in education, medicine, or television unless they keep their mouths shut?”
In the end, he reminds readers that despite what they’ve said to liberal-leaning friends about the presidential race — or felt compelled to say — our secret ballot allows us all to vote our conscience without retribution: “Should you, on reflection, vote in secret for a candidate you would not endorse in public, you will not be alone.” READ FULL STORY »
