Editorial: What he really meant to say

Saturday, June 3, 2006 | 7:41 a.m.

President Bush's new domestic policy adviser, Karl Zinsmeister, has admitted to altering quotes in a newspaper profile about him before posting the article two years ago on the Web site of a magazine he edited.

According to The Washington Post, Zinsmeister was an editor of the American Enterprise Institute's magazine in 2004 when he altered an article that had been written about him by a New York weekly newspaper and then posted it on his magazine's Web site. The posting did not note he had made changes.

In the original article, published in the Syracuse New Times, the Post reports that Zinsmeister made critical remarks about Iraqi civilians, Washington's elite and upper-class parents. In one instance, he doctored a passage from the article which had quoted him as saying, "People in Washington are morally repugnant, cheating, shifty human beings."

Evidently, Zinsmeister didn't like how his opinion sounded once it was printed. He claimed the reporter had misquoted him, so he made a few "innocent" changes. He ought to fit right in with Bush, whose advisory staff can spin their remarks faster than a carnival ride.

Zinsmeister's actions show he was closer to being correct the first time he spoke. He just didn't see that he was describing himself.