Introduction to new White House domestic policy chief

Think Again: Change the Tone

by Eric Alterman
June 15, 2006

Remember when candidate George W. Bush promised to "change the tone" in Washington from one of acrimony and accusation to one of mutual respect and cooperation? I know it's hard to believe, given all that's happened in the past five years. But it is worth recalling, every so often, to determine just how cynically he is now governing.

The appointment of new White House domestic policy chief Karl Zinsmeister gives us all an opportunity to remember how so many Americans were taken in by Bush's phony campaign. It's not only "compassionate conservatism" that went by the wayside. Zinsmeister can be accused of changing a tone for the better only if your standard is Ann Coulter.

Zinsmeister has long been a virulent critic of the American press, which he has described as being composed of little more than "left-wing, cynical, wiseguy Ivy League types, with a high prima donna quotient." But like so many other "regular guys" who populate the Bush administration, Zinsmeister himself is a pointy-headed Ivy Leaguer who is a product of Yale University, and who, despite his oft-professed hatred of Washington, put in time staffing for Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan and serving on an Education Department advisory board before taking on the editorship of The American Enterprise magazine.

Zinsmeister does not confine his contempt to Washington reporters. In March 2003, in the midst of the initial Iraq invasion, he took time out from covering the war to bash his fellow reporters, writing that "a significant number [of journalists embedded with the troops] are whiny and appallingly soft … mocking military mores in snide jokes and wise-guy observations … rolling their eyes at each other when ideas like honor, sacrifice, or duty enter the conversation."

Then he added, "Typical reporters know little about a fighting life. They show scant respect for the fighter's virtues. Precious few could ever be referred to as fighting men themselves." Just as Paul Wolfowitz, Laura Ingraham and others did when they accused reporters who take this dangerous assignment of cowardice, he neglected to provide any particulars. No less typically, Zinsmeister has done his fighting exclusively from behind a desk.