Karl Zinsmeister

Karl Zinsmeister (born 1959) was appointed by U.S. President George W. Bush in June 2006 to serve as his chief domestic policy adviser, and Director of the White House Domestic Policy Council.

Zinsmeister is a graduate of Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut and has also studied history as a special student at Trinity College, Dublin, Ireland. He won college rowing championships in both the U.S. and Ireland. His first job in Washington was as a legislative assistant to U.S. Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan, a New York Democrat. He was later named Dewitt Wallace Fellow, and eventually appointed to the J. B. Fuqua endowed chair at the American Enterprise Institute, a prominent conservative Washington DC think tank, where he researched a range of topics extending from social welfare and demographics to economics and cultural trends.cite news|title=Fuqua Chair Established at AEI|author=AEI|date=December 1, 1997|page=1|publisher=American Enterprise Institute|url=http://www.aei.org/publications/filter.all,pubID.15025/pub_detail.asp]

He has been an adviser to many research and policy groups, and has testified before Congress and Presidential commissions numerous times on topics like family policy, daycare, farm subsidies, and the Iraq war. He has made many appearances on television and radio.cite news|title=Domestic Policy Council|author=WH|date=June, 2006|page=1|publisher=Whitehouse.gov|url=http://www.whitehouse.gov/government/kzinsmeister-bio.html]

Before becoming the White House Domestic Policy Adviser, he was Editor in Chief from 1994 to 2006 of The American Enterprise, a national magazine covering politics, business, and culture.cite news|title=Editor at Conservative Magazine To Be Top Policy Adviser to Bush|author=Michael A. Fletcher|date=May 25, 2006|page=A04|publisher=Washington Post|url=http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/24/AR2006052402349.html] He wrote many articles for that publication, and reported stories from around the U.S. and the globe, on topics like religion and politics, the European economy, new oil drilling techniques coming on line in Alaska, suburban neighborhood design, and Wall Street financial innovations. His writing was also published in periodicals ranging from The Atlantic Monthly to Reader's Digest and the Wall Street Journal.

Zinsmeister was an embedded journalist during the 2003 invasion of Iraq, and then served three subsequent months-long embeddings with combat units during the insurgency stage of the war. He shot a documentary film about soldiers in Iraq, called "WARRIORS", which was nationally broadcast by PBS. He wrote three books of Iraq reporting: ', "," and ' (a non-fiction graphic novel from Marvel Comics). He edited a book on world population trends, and edited and contributed to a collection of non-fiction short stories.cite news|title=Editor at Conservative Magazine To Be Top Policy Adviser to Bush|author=Michael A. Fletcher|date=May 25, 2006|page=A04|publisher=Washington Post|url=http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/24/AR2006052402349.html] cite news|title=White House's New Zinsmeister|author=Mark Silva|date=May 24, 2006|publisher=Chicago Tribune|url=http://weblogs.chicagotribune.com/news/politics/blog/2006/05/white_houses_new_zinsmeister.html] cite news|title=A Bush Aide's Blunt Words|author=Peter Baker|date=June 13, 2006|page=A19|publisher=Washington Post|url=http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/06/12/AR2006061201479.html]

Since his appointment, news reports indicate, Zinsmeister has been active in policymaking on topics like the 2008 mortgage and student-loan credit crises, immigration reform, biotechnology and stem cell policies, airport congestion, education reform, transportation issues, health policy, faith-based schooling, an 8,000-job layoff in Ohio, poverty, crime, family policy, civil rights, and veterans’ affairs.cite news|title=Chertoff Emerges as Linchpin|author=Spencer Hsu|date=May 23, 2007|page=A19|publisher=Washington Post|url=http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/05/22/AR2007052201466.html] cite news|title=Key Bush Appointee Departs, Another Arrives|author=Pete Winn|date=August, 2006|page=5|publisher=Citizen Magazine] cite news|title=Bush Will Pair Veto With New Cell Initiative|author=Sheryl Gay Stolberg|date=June 20, 2007|page=A19|publisher=New York Times|url=http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/20/washington/20stem.html?ex=1184644800&en=076e3387df7264b2&ei=5070] cite news|title=White House Aide Channels a Democrat on Fixing Nation's Social Ills|author=Michael Fletcher|date=October 1, 2007|page=A17|publisher=Washington Post|url=http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/30/AR2007093001351.html] cite news|title=White House Summit on Inner-City Children|author=WH|date=April 24, 2008|page=1|publisher=Whitehouse.gov|url=http://www.whitehouse.gov/infocus/education/whschoolsummit/index.html] cite news|title=DHL Deal With UPS Turns Political|author=Marc Pitzke|date=July 31, 2008|page=1|publisher=Business Week|url=http://www.businessweek.com/print/globalbiz/content/jul2008/gb20080731_946820.htm]

His appointment to the White House was the source of some controversy. In 2004, Zinsmeister posted to the American Enterprise Institute website an article from the Syracuse New Times about himself. In the process, he altered a statement attributed to him that read "people in Washington are morally repugnant, cheating, shifty human beings." He subsequently admitted that it was "foolish" to correct the mistakes of a young journalist without noting that on the record.cite news|title=A Bush Aide's Blunt Words|author=Peter Baker|date=June 13, 2006|page=A19|publisher=Washington Post|url=http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/06/12/AR2006061201479.html] This resulted in a heated exchange between White House press secretary Tony Snow and longtime White House correspondent Helen Thomas.cite news|title=Press Briefing by Tony Snow|url=http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2006/05/20060530-4.html#]

Later in 2006, the New York Sun reported that Zinsmeister may have run afoul of the Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967 while editing The American Enterprise by taking out advertisements that sought "young" applicants. Further, Zinsmeister used a pseudonym – belonging to the long-dead British writer G. K. Chesterton – in some of the ads.cite news|title=Bush Aide Needs Legal Refresher, Ads Suggest|author=Josh Gerstein|date=June 13, 2006|page=A19|publisher=New York Sun|url=http://www.nysun.com/pf.php?id=34318]

References

External links

* [http://www.whitehouse.gov/government/kzinsmeister-bio.html Biographical information at whitehouse.gov]
* [http://conference.aapss.org/papers/Zinsmeister.pdf Biographical and professional information from Harvard conference]
* [http://taemag.com/issues/back_issues.asp Essays by subject in magazines edited by him]
* [http://www.pbs.org/weta/crossroads/about/show_warriors.html PBS film produced by subject]
* [http://www.world-affairs.org/calendar.cfm?eventID=364&action=eventDetails Iraq speech to Seattle World Affairs Council]
* [http://bookmarcsonline.blogspot.com/2008/01/front-lines.html Author’s graphic novel for Marvel Comics]
* [http://www.whitehouse.gov/infocus/education/whschoolsummit/transcript.html Opening presentation to White House education summit]