David Mamet

Acclaimed playwright David Mamet is featured in the New York Times Sunday magazine’s "Talk" feature (formerly "Q&A") on the eve of the publication of "The Secret Knowledge," his dramatic intellectual break with the political left.

Early reviews suggest Mamet’s message is bracing, and the left has responded in kind with vicious cries of sellout. Perhaps that’s why Andrew Goldman’s Q&A with Mamet is testier than his previous interviews (he replaced the liberal Deborah Solomon in the magazine’s Q&A slot in March). Even the subhead was slanted and hostile: "David Mamet explains his intellectual shift to the right. The far right."

The name David Mamet may not be known to the majority of Americans. However, theater and movie works that he's been involved in over the past four decades certainly are, such as "The Postman Always Rings Twice," "The Verdict," "Glengarry Glen Ross," "Wag the Dog," and "The Untouchables."

A previously avowed liberal who even contributes to the Huffington Post, Mamet has recently had a change of heart concerning his political views which he marvelously shared with his fans at the Village Voice Thursday.

Readers are cautioned to fasten their seatbelts tightly before proceeding, for Mamet wrote inconvenient truths about liberalism one rarely sees from folks on that side of the aisle. What many will find truly intriguing, especially those that used to consider themselves to be liberals, is how much the calculus of his epiphany is similar to theirs (emphasis added throughout, infrequent vulgarity alert):