The American presidency is all about power; while even a president can be badly flawed because no man is perfect and can know or understand all things, writes acclaimed playwright David Mamet.
“We elect newscasters today and not presidents” writes famed playwright David Mamet in his new book, “The Secret Knowledge: On the Dismantling of American Culture.” Also, the American presidency is front and center in 2012 -- with the forthcoming election to decide if President Barack Obama will win another term -- and recent reminders that President John F. Kennedy and other presidents reportedly had extra-marital affairs. In fact, JFK is said to have had affairs with a number of women, including Marilyn Monroe, Gunilla von Post, Judith Campbell, Mary Pinchot Meyer, Marlene Dietrich and Mimi Alford. Also, Alford revealed her secret affair with JFK when releasing her new tell-all book released Feb. 6 that states she was 19, and working as a White House intern when she first met President Kennedy. Alford claimed her affair with the president lasted for 18 months; while keeping it under wraps for more than 40 years. In turn, David Mamet writes in his new book “The Secret Knowledge: On The Dismantling Of American Culture” that “Thomas Jefferson was an adulterer; so was every president, most likely. That’s why men get into politics; it gives them power.”
Mamet on the “power” of the presidency
This acclaimed playwright noted in his new book -- “The Secret Knowledge: On the Dismantling of American Culture” -- that the presidency brings power, and “power brings sex, just as it was in the cave days.”
Mamet also states how “politicians are supposed to have a wife. With increased success they can have all the sex they want, so they are invited to commit adultery. And those who do not steal, will bend the laws, some for personal benefit, for contributions, for the benefit of friends, some in the service of their country, some through folly. Because they have power.”
Mamet’s new book – by the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of “Glengarry Glen Ross” – is a discourse on politics in America that this famed author describes as a pathetic affair, with “partisan loyalties” and even “manufactured controversies.” Mamet, who earned Academy Award nominations for his screenplays for “The Verdict,” and “Wag the Dog,” also asks questions about how absolute power tends to corrupt absolutely; while asking what else does power do? How might one abuse power? How does one seek it? Know the nature of power, why is one inclined to abdicate any power or reason?”
In turn, Mamet is quoted by his publisher for this new book, penguingroup.com, as stating: "My interest in politics began when I noticed that I acted differently than I spoke, that I had seen 'the government' commit sixty years of fairly unrelieved and catastrophic error nationally and internationally, that I not only hated every wasted hard-earned cent I spent in taxes, but the trauma and misery they produced.”
For the past thirty years, David Mamet has been a controversial and defining force in theater and film, championing the most cherished liberal values along the way. In some of the great movies and plays of our time, his characters have explored the ethics of the business world, embodied the struggles of the oppressed, and faced the flaws of the capitalist system, added the penguingroup.com marketing pitch for this New York Times bestseller.
The president as a talking head
Mamet, who explored the abuse of power in his Oscar nominated screenplay for the political thriller “Wag the Dog,” explains to the layman how presidents today are simply “talking heads” who read or present information developed by their staff. For example, picture Karl Rove “preparing” former President George W. Bush for a speech.
In turn, Mamet writes in his new book about American politics -- “The Secret Knowledge: On The Dismantling Of American Culture” – that “we long ago ceased expecting that a president speak his own words. WE no longer expect him actually to know the answers to questions put to him. We have, in effect, come to elect newscaster – and by a similar process: not for their probity or for their intelligence, but for their ‘believability.’”
Mamet also takes on President Obama’s use of the term “Hope” in winning the power that the White House provides. “Hope is a very different exhortation than, for example, save, work, cooperate, sacrifice, think. It means: ‘Hope for the best, in the process over which you have no control.’ For, if one had control, if one could endorse a candidate with actual, rational programs, such a candidate demonstrably possessed of character and ability sufficient to offer reasonable chance of carrying these programs out, we might require patience or understanding, but why would we need hope?”
Presidents “don’t know the American people”
Mitt Romney likes to wear blue jeans and work clothing when talking to auto workers during recent campaign stops in Michigan. But, does that mean he’s “one of the people,” or can relate to the working class? Mamet thinks not.
For instance, Mamet writes in his new book about American politics that he recalls an anecdote about President Franklin Roosevelt. “When Roosevelt died, a man’s father came upon a workingman crying. ‘Why are you crying,’ he asked, ‘did you know him?’
‘No,’ the man replied, ‘he knew me.’
“Good story. But what can it mean? That Roosevelt ‘understood the fellow’s pains and troubles?’ If so, then he likely would have been more circumspect before tearing apart an economy the workings of which he neither understood nor wished to.”
“’He knew me’ means that the fellow felt Roosevelt knew him. How was he brought to that feeling? By the president’s actions? More likely by his presentation. For Roosevelt spoke soothingly. He was a good radio performer, he had good writers, and so the listener was soothed.”
“’We have nothing to fear but fear itself,’ is, indeed, a nice phrase – in the event, it would have been truer had he added, ‘And an out-of-control and ignorant government intervention in our daily business.’”
Image source of the official White House portrait of John F. Kennedy by Aaron Shikler that adds to the aura of deep thinking but flawed presidents who seek power that often corrupts them when in office. Photo courtesy Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_F._Kennedy
Book Reference: Penguin Group
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