Stephanie Mencimer writes that Tea Party activist Mark Meckler is convinced that Playwright David Mamet became a conservative because of the Tea Party Movement:
But Meckler also found evidence of the tea party's influence in Mamet's new book, which the tea party leader had been reading on the airplane en route to DC for the conference. Meckler explained to the audience that Mamet had been what he now calls a "brain-dead liberal," and for decades part of the depraved Hollywood cultural elite. But now, Meckler said, "David Mamet publicly came out as a conservative... This is a cultural shift that has never happened before in this country."
Meckler suggested that Mamet's conversion was a direct result of the tea party movement's success at spreading the conservative gospel. (I tried to ask Mamet about this claim, but his publicist said he was out scouting a location for a new film and was unavailable to comment.) Meckler plugged the book, and after the panel discussion, audience members approached him afterward to get more info on the author, whom most had apparently never heard of.
Can I borrow Meckler's time machine? Mamet was frothing at "National Palestinian Radio" in the Village Voice back in 2008, although judging by Christopher Hitchens' review of his latest book that the abridged, 2008 version of his conversion tale reads like A Theory of Justice in comparison.
