A Bush Aide's Blunt Words

In fact, his antipathy for Washington got him in trouble when he was appointed. In a 2004 profile by the Syracuse New Times, Zinsmeister was quoted as saying, "People in Washington are morally repugnant, cheating, shifty human beings." But the New York Sun discovered last month that he doctored that and other quotes when he posted the profile on the AEI Web site. The edited quote said, "I learned in Washington that there is an 'overclass' in this country stocked with cheating, shifty human beings that's just as morally repugnant as our 'underclass.' "

Zinsmeister later said he was "foolish" to change the quotes and did so only because he had been misquoted. The New Times disputed that and denounced him for altering its account. White House spokesman Tony Snow defended him and described Zinsmeister as someone with "sharp elbows" who "expresses himself with a certain amount of piquancy."

Another question about Zinsmeister's past arose when he was accused of résumé padding by Greg Sargent on a blog, The Horse's Mouth, hosted by The American Prospect, a liberal magazine. The White House release said he "founded" the American Enterprise, although the magazine had been around for four years when he took over in 1994. The White House took the blame, saying that Zinsmeister actually used the term "formulated" because he revamped the magazine but that a White House aide misunderstood and wrote "founded."

A native of Cazenovia, Zinsmeister, 47, is himself an "Ivy League type" who graduated from Yale University before working for Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan (D-N.Y.) and serving on an Education Department advisory board. He has also worked as a writer, film producer and radio commentator.

At the American Enterprise Institute, Zinsmeister stood out in a think tank known for a more libertarian, economic conservatism. Beyond cultural and social issues, he also took a special interest in Iraq. Unlike most pundits, he embedded with U.S. troops four times to get a firsthand look. The result has been two books on the war, a Marvel Comics chronicle of soldiers in Iraq and a forthcoming PBS documentary.

His faith in U.S. power translated into an optimistic view of the war. In 2003, he mocked the BBC for asserting the United States "could take, bluntly, a couple to 3,000 casualties." Later that year, he wrote, "Not too far down the road, today's drumbeat about America's failure to bring instant recovery to Iraq may look quite rash."

A year later, he wrote a piece titled "How America Is Winning a Guerilla War." A year after that, he declared victory. "The War is Over, and We Won," announced a June 2005 piece. "With the exception of periodic flare-ups in isolated corners, our struggle in Iraq as warfare is over," he wrote. Although there will still be "egregious acts of terror," he said, "contrary to the impression given by most newspaper headlines, the United States has won the day in Iraq."

Media coverage of the war has been a favorite target. He called journalists who embedded in 2003 "whiny and appallingly soft," and later condemned the "relentlessly gloomy reporting." In March, he wrote, "More than perhaps any news event in a generation, coverage of the Iraq war has been unbalanced and incomplete."

Although Bush avoids casting terrorism as a battle with Islam, Zinsmeister has not been so reluctant. "First, let's recognize that we're in a full-blown war; that (contrary to mealy-mouthed platitudes) it is indeed a war against a considerable part of Islam," he wrote in 2001. Yet he fretted at American sensitivity. "Would you believe that the number of formal U.S. investigations of how terror detainees are being treated recently reached 189?" he wrote last fall. "What mad self-doubt and softness!"

Foreign policy won't fall under his new portfolio, but he has written extensively on social issues that will, such as race, class and culture. He has condemned "feminist absolutism," "Green irrationality," "limousine leftists" and "the dreary left-wing, homophilic P.C. propaganda that has dominated Broadway."

Zinsmeister lamented a "forced diversity crusade" that fuels more alienation than it solves and argued that "Americans should jettison affirmative action and all racial preferences." He dismissed reparations for slavery as "a clear absurdity" because "the U.S. already made a mighty payment for the sin of slavery. It was called the Civil War." He traces wrongheaded political correctness to colleges that have become "virtual one-party states, ideological monopolies, badly unbalanced ecosystems."

The Clintons in particular are anathema. He is "a chronic liar, an out-of-control adulterer, an obstructer of justice, a draft dodger, an all-round morally challenged sleazeball." She has shown "a disturbing pattern of reflexive truth-stretching and reality-doctoring."

At a time when Bush has lost support among some conservatives, Zinsmeister's appointment may reassure some of the disaffected in the party that a strong voice will be heard in the White House. Snow said Zinsmeister will be useful for his challenging viewpoints.

"You want interesting people who are smart, who have serious policy credentials and who are able to make other people think," Snow said. But not necessarily, he added, in public anymore. "I think he'll be careful with his words."