Deft with words Bush speech writer - idiot and twit - Michael Gerson has the gall to criticize Donald Trump and to be taken seriously by Strib. Read of it, per Strib's republishing something Gerson wrote for WaPo that dumps on Trump, and gee, at the same time seems indirectly to serve John Ellis Bush's GOPe low-energy survival wish.

It reeks of sleaze --- and of a zealot's political correctness straitjacketing will to castigate:

Commentary - Time for denial is over. Donald Trump is shattering the GOP

Can economic, foreign policy and religious conservatives share a party with repugnant nativism?
By MICHAEL GERSON WASHINGTON POST - November 24, 2015 — 11:26am

[...] There are, of course, Republican presidential hopefuls who have vigorously opposed each of these proposals, arguments and stereotypes. But Donald Trump has, so far, set the terms of the primary debate and dragged other candidates in the direction of ethnic and religious exclusion. One effect has been the legitimization of even more extreme views — signaling that it is OK to give voice to sentiments and attitudes that, in previous times, people would have been too embarrassed to share in public. So in Tennessee, the chairman of the state Legislature’s GOP caucus has called for the mobilization of the National Guard to round up Syrian refugees and put them in camps. Many Republicans are now on record saying that Islam is inherently violent and inconsistent with constitutional values (while often displaying an ironic and disturbing ignorance of those values).

Vin Weber, a prominent GOP strategist, told me that many Republicans remain in “denial mode” about the possibility of Trump’s nomination. “How can you be the leader in national polls,” Weber says, “and in the early states, and maybe even in money, and be counted out?” In spite of saturation media coverage, Weber thinks the Trump effect on the GOP is “understated.” [...]

You read that right. Vin Weber as Gerson's loadstone navigational aid to all things proper in our society. Beltway Lobbyist Vin Weber, colleague of PACman Norm Coleman, two figures that in a proper light bring shame to Minnesota, for having raised and/or harbored them.

So who is Gerson, and might he be subject to being given GOPe marching orders?

Gerson is the axis of evil Bush braintruster; "the evangelical Christian who coined the phrase 'axis of evil' and wrote most of the president's scripted words."

See, also, Slate, The Atlantic in some detail, Wikipedia here and here, and Jeffrey Goldberg for New Yorker, and beyond that, web search is available for more online items about Gerson, his Bushco days and otherwise. Previous Crabgrass posting touching on the Michael Gerson persona, weeks apart in chronological order, here and here.

With Gerson doing a hatchet job on Trump, recall the old saying about the pot calling the kettle black. Gerson having served to mire our nation in the Bushco - Iraq war-for-oil fiasco, will not shut up, as long as WaPo feeds him cash to go negative on non-Bush candidates for the 2016 general election GOP party candidacy. Any words of favor? He at least keeps himself to working a single side of the street. Beyond that, readers are invited to weigh in via comments.

LAST: If you want an axis of evil, try this web search.

See if, to your mind, it fits.