A New Karl In The West Wing
President Bush's new Domestic Policy Advisor, Karl Zinsmeister, started work in the West Wing this week.
This guy is typical of what ails the W administration.
The Z-man has spent years editing a journal for the right-wing American Enterprise Institute, where he was free to spout whatever came to mind, pretty much like all us bloggers out here, except that he's been at it longer with a bigger platform.
The New Republic, Washington Post and dozens of other news organizations have done a nice job of unearthing just a few of his many offensive posts, things like Al Gore is a "mad dog" known to "foam at the mouth".
But here's the real problem, a chronic one in this administration. At a time when Bush desperately needs help on a wide array of domestic policy issues ranging from gas prices to education to the recent spike in violent crime rates, he chooses an advisor who has absolutely NO real life experience with any of those issues.
Anyone can sit in an ivory tower and spout off about what's wrong or what he or she would do if he were dictator of the world (just check out some prior posts on this blog!). And that's just about all Zinsmeister has done with his life.
Furthermore, Zins is clearly a contrarian in everything he does. In an interview with the Syracuse Post-Standard (he's from Syracuse), he bragged about not having a phone for years while living in Washington, and never having owned a television as an adult. And THIS is the guy who's going to advise on domestic policy?
He also shows a lack of judgment that, if exercised by anyone on the left who he happened not to like, would no doubt earn excoriation in The American Enterprise. For example, after being named to his position by the White House, Z tried to alter a quote from another Syracuse press article, in which he said that "people in Washington are morally repugnant, cheating, shifty human beings." (Hmm, he must've hung out with DeLay, Abramoff, Cunningham and that crowd.) When called on the quote altering, he said he had been "foolish".
Well, yeah!
Anyway, Zinsmeister says he didn't apply for the job--instead, someone in the Bush administration, familiar with and impressed by his writings, tracked him down and had him come in to interview for the position. Again, why would W reach out to someone with such meager qualifications and a bit of a crackpot attitude, and offer him such an important position?
Who knows, maybe they'll draft Ann Coulter to head up the NSA.
Truthout v. The Other Karl
Karl Rove's lawyer announced he won't be indicted in Plamegate. That leaves the question, raised here a few weeks ago: how did Truthout, which breathlessly reported Rove's imminent indictment, get it so wrong?
There's a story behind the story here--we'd like to learn how Jason Leopold (the Truthout correspondent) got away with such a fabrication.
Weather Curmudgeon
Today's predicted weather:
10 days ago: 86 degrees, scattered T-storms, 60% chance of rain
5 days ago: 82 degrees, mostly sunny, 20% chance of rain
Actual: 81 degrees, mostly sunny, no rain
Ten day forecast gets a N--not useful; five day forecast gets a Y--useful (in fact, right on the mark!)
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