A Bush Aide’s Blunt Words By Peter Baker, Washington Post Staff Writer

Bill Clinton is a “virtuoso deceiver” and Hillary Rodham Clinton a “true chameleon” guilty of “self-serving behavior, comparative radicalism, and dubious personal morality.”

Al Gore is a “mad dog” known to “foam at the mouth.” John McCain is given to “showboating.” And Jacques Chirac, Nelson Mandela, Gerhard Schroeder and Kofi Annan are all “feckless fools.”

Says who? President Bush’s new chief domestic policy adviser, … Karl Zinsmeister, who started his new job yesterday.

For a dozen years until his appointment, Zinsmeister held forth on all manner of issues and personalities as editor in chief of the American Enterprise Institute’s magazine. With a sharp pen, he skewered the left, taking special aim at environmentalists, anti-globalists, feminists, contemporary artists, university faculties, Hollywood, Broadway and particularly the media, composed mainly of “left-wing, cynical, wiseguy Ivy League types, with a high prima donna quotient.” …

For Zinsmeister, provocation has been his stock in trade. “That’s kind of my M.O., for better or worse,” he said by phone last week. “My main beef with much of the Washington discussion is you’re forced to be so mealy-mouthed. I had the luxury as an outsider of being as blunt as I wanted. When you’re outside trying to push the elephant even an inch, you have to be very crisp and uncouched.”

But Zinsmeister said he understands that must change now that he advises the president. “When you’re inside the tent, you have to shift gears. That’s a double standard, but it’s an appropriate one.” …

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. …

[In 2005,] 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.” …

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.