President Bush announced last week that he was appointing Karl Zinsmeister, editor of American Enterprise magazine, as the White House's new domestic policy adviser. Two days later, The New York Sun reported that Zinsmeister altered a 2004 profile of himself written by Justin Park for the Syracuse New Times and posted it on the American Enterprise Web site. Park's byline still appeared on the amended article, but several quotes from Zinsmeister had been softened, including one calling residents of Washington, D.C. "morally repugnant" and another criticizing the Bush Administration's conduct of the war in Iraq. In the Washington Post this morning, Zinsmeister admits he made the changes but claims he was merely correcting mistakes made by Park, even though he sent the New Times reporter a laudatory message after the profile was published. New Times Editor Molly English called Zinsmeister's conduct "reprehensible ... Once this is published, it's not his property. From that point in time, he can't just pick and choose," she told the Sun.
