This is truly one of the most "brain-dead" essays I've read in a while and, more importantly, unwittingly argues that the corporate takeover of the village voice has more or less destroyed the once proud institution. Mamet's essay, while making an awkwardly bigoted stab at humor (NPR is "national palestinian radio" -- wha?), quite correctly notes that one of the intellectual underpinnings of liberalism is the belief in the intrinsic goodness of people. He then proceeds to convince himself that that is folly due to the fact that people behave badly and, moreover, that the greatness of America is partly due to the cynicism of the Constitution, which assumes the selfishness of humanity. This is a bit like arguing that black people are just as good as white people until you look at the crime statistics and realize that, lo!, they commit more crime. He doesn't get it. He just goes from being a brain-dead liberal to being a brain-dead conservative. Which shouldn't really require so many words, really.