Great Republican Shakespeare Festival?
By James J. Risser | Winona

It is truly baffling to comprehend why our summer guests, the Great River Shakespeare Festival, have decided to soil Winona by inviting Michael Gerson to speak in our city. For those of you unfamiliar with Mr. Gerson, he is a right-wing, evangelical, war monger and former speech writer and policy advisor for Mr. Bush. He is currently part of the right-wing think-tank, the Heritage Foundation, and has a new book out this fall on his personal vision of the Republican party in the 21st century; we can expect to hear him begin selling it this weekend in Winona.

If you do not know Mr. Gerson, you will undoubtedly be familiar with his work. He is the person who added the terms “Axis of Evil” and the lie about Iraq and our destruction via “a smoking gun in the form of a mushroom cloud” to our lexicon.
What his relationship to William Shakespeare is is unknown and not immediately apparent from his writings on evangelicalism, the Republican party, and lying America into an illegal war. That being said, he does bear resemblance to a quote from Macbeth: “Will all great Neptune’s ocean wash this blood clean from my hand? No, this is my hand will rather the multitudinous seas incarnadine, making the green one red.” So, unless he is going to perform as the dark General Macbeth in a matinee, any connection with the festival seems rather dubious.

Finally, if our seasonal guests are going to bring blood-stained war-mongers to our community on a regular basis, perhaps it is time to reconsider our invitation. This volunteer, participant, and supporter of the festival has done so, and I am through with the festival unless the person responsible for this outrage resigns immediately. I humbly request that the 20-plus Great River League Members consider whether their donation to this 501(c)(3) tax-exempt is, in fact, being made to an organization violating its obligation to not conduct political campaign activities for the Republican party.

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