Why Oh Why Are We Ruled by These Liars?

Karl Zinsmeister, of the American Enterprise Institute, is the new Assistant to President Bush for Domestic Policy. He will fit right in:

Questions Arising Over Quotations Of Zinsmeister: BY JOSH GERSTEIN - Staff Reporter of the Sun: A magazine editor named to a top White House policy post, Karl Zinsmeister, altered his own quotes and other text in a published newspaper profile of him posted on the Web site of the magazine he has edited for more than a decade, the American Enterprise.... The New York Sun... editor, Molly English.... "It's reprehensible, frankly," Ms. English said. "Once this is published, it's not his property. From that point in time, he can't just pick and choose."

The version of the story posted by the American Enterprise runs under Mr. Park's byline and states that it was published in the Syracuse New Times. Mr. Zinsmeister did not respond to a phone message and an e-mail seeking comment for this article.... The Sun yesterday republished a quote from the original New Times story, in which Mr. Zinsmeister, who lives and works in upstate Cazenovia, expressed his antipathy for the nation's capital and its denizens. "People in Washington are morally repugnant, cheating, shifty human beings," the Syracuse weekly quoted him as saying.

However, in the version posted on the American Enterprise site, his quote reads differently and sweeps less broadly. "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,'" the revised article said. In addition, what Mr. Park described as Mr. Zinsmeister's "strong distaste for the Washington elite," became, in the later version, simply, "a distaste for the Washington elite."...

The original article quoted Mr. Zinsmeister as saying, "[Bush] said, 'I'm gonna do something for history.' To say nothing of whether it was executed well or not, but it's brave and admirable. It got depressing to have to be [in the Middle East] every couple years like cicadas." The version posted by the American Enterprise omits the suggestion that the war was poorly run, drops the insect metaphor, and substitutes nobler language. "[Bush] said, 'I'm gonna do something for history.' It's a brave and admirable attempt to improve the world," the second version said.

Mr. Park also quoted the magazine editor as saying, "I can't think of one Iraqi I met that I'm confident never lied to me." Mr. Zinsmeister's version said he passed on the comment from "one officer who'd been in Iraq for a full year."

One of the changes Mr. Zinsmeister made corrected a factual error about D-Day casualties...

Impeach George W. Bush. Impeach him now.