Also: John Kerry Wants to Defend the Country With Spitballs

Michael Gerson's banal musings on how Shakespeare is good, and partisan meanies are bad, would be merely annoying if not for the fact that it's author is Michael Gerson. Gerson's previous job, you'll recall, was as a partisan political operative working for George W. Bush. All those speeches about how Saddam Husseins nuclear weapons were going to kill your children unless you voted for Republican congressional candidates in 2002? They came out of his shop. Speeches about how John Kerry was going to personally hand your kids over to Osama bin Laden? His shop. Bizarre lies about cuts in the top income tax rate being designed primarily for the benefit of small businessmen? His shop.

At any rate, there's a great article about Gerson not even written by an embittered liberal forthcoming in the new Atlantic that I would link to, quote, etc., etc. but it hasn't come forth yet. Keep your eyes peeled.

Photo by Flickr user grendelkhan used under a Creative Commons license

Comments

There you have it, liberals hate Shakespeare.

Posted by aleks | August 8, 2007 12:50 PM

Funny how all those conservatives who had no problem calling us terrorist sympathizers back when the polls were running their way now long for the days of bipartisan comity (whenever that was). I wonder what changed their minds?

Posted by Col Bat Guano | August 8, 2007 12:52 PM

Do you mean that the article is (a) not yet written, and (b) by an embittered liberal? Or do you mean that the article is (a) not by an embittered liberal, and (b) written but not yet published?

Posted by Brad DeLong | August 8, 2007 1:02 PM

Shakespeare was 50 gay men and a women.

Posted by Gregorio | August 8, 2007 1:02 PM

What part of this don't you understand?

Whenever politicians fail to eagerly embrace a right wing agenda, whether they be Republicans or Democrats, it makes them 'partisan'.

When Democrats embrace right wing agendas, they are being bi-partisan.

If Democrats dissent from a right wing agenda, they are being partisan, bitter, and destroying America.

America, in the view of our anointed classes, IS the right wing agenda, whoever it is and whenever it is.

Posted by El Cid | August 8, 2007 1:14 PM

I think that Mr. Gerson should also be called on to explain why he remains a member of the Falls Church which has been hijacked by born again gay bashers who have placed the church under a former Nigerian bishop who proposes putting homosexuals in jail.

Posted by SLC | August 8, 2007 1:25 PM

Washington Post should be ashamed to publish this Bush propagandist. Unfortunately they are beyond shame. Not only do they publish Bush mouthpiece Gerson but that traitor Bob Novak and unhinged neocon Godfather Krathammer. And if all that shame isn't bad enough they have Fred Hiatt penning their editorials.

When will some rich liberals put some money together and launch a decent paper in the nation's capital?

Posted by DonB | August 8, 2007 1:43 PM

"In a time deluged by ideology -- when everyone is urged to take a side and join the political battle -- Shakespeare offers a different message: that the most important and dramatic choices are made in the human soul. Some steps, once taken, cannot be retraced. Some appetites, once freed, become a prison."

Matt: Could this be a veiled mea culpa? He obviously took a side, his steps cannot be retraced, perhaps his appetites have become a prison.

Posted by David | August 8, 2007 1:47 PM

O villain, villain, smiling, damned villain!
My tables,—meet it is I set it down,
That one may smile, and smile, and be a villain . . .

Posted by rea | August 8, 2007 2:18 PM

I thought of a different villain, rea.

And thus I clothe my naked villainy
With old odd ends stolen out of holy writ,
And seem a saint when most I play the devil.

Posted by Trevor | August 8, 2007 3:35 PM

Gerson is a careerist-- he wants to ascend from hack to wiseman. I've got a suspicion that it just won't work in this day and age. The damaging comparison to Gerson isn't with Novak or with Krauthammer but with Noonan. Noonan is plainly a lunatic, but she's smart and means what she says.

Posted by MattF | August 8, 2007 5:27 PM

- it's author is Michael Gerson
+ its author is Michael Gerson

Posted by Fingal | August 8, 2007 10:15 PM